


Untangled Roots

by ICanStopAnytime



Series: Untangled Roots [1]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-02-09 05:45:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 99,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18632035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ICanStopAnytime/pseuds/ICanStopAnytime
Summary: Daryl takes Carol on a road trip in search of her roots, but what they discover is far more complex. (This story assumes canon through until the first time jump on the TV show, but then goes AU. In this version of events, they never encountered the Whisperers.)





	1. Untangled Roots

Daryl's awake before the door creaks open. Candlelight flickers in the entry way, illuminating the small figure of the almost five-year-old boy. "Uncle Daryl? I had a bad dream."

"C'mere."

Hershey pads barefoot across the floor and sets the candle on the rustic two-drawer nightstand by Daryl's small bed in the servant's quarters of the Hilltop's historic mansion. Daryl flings back the comforter so Hershey can crawl under it, and then he drapes it over the boy again like the wing of a bird. The boy curls like a kitten on his side, and Daryl doesn't dare blow out the candle, not yet. He'll wait until Hershey's asleep.

"Tell me the story of my parents again," the boy asks.

Daryl settles his head on his feather-stuffed pillow and looks up at the cracked ceiling. "Yer daddy was the best supply runner in all of Georgia, and yer mama was the farmer's daughter…"

Daryl only gets a tenth of the way through the tale before Hershey's little chest is rising and falling. Careful not to disturb the boy, Daryl puts a hand on the mattress on the other side of him, leans forward, and blows out the candle.

On her death bed, Maggie made Daryl promise to protect the boy, and he has. Usually Hershey sleeps in Enid's room, who has become like a young mother to him, but sometimes, he pads his way to Daryl's.

In the darkness, Daryl can't help but think of all the people who once made up his tiny tribe in Georgia. They're all gone now, except Michonne and Judith, who live in Alexandria, and Carol, who has been ruling as sole monarch of the Kingdom ever since Ezekiel died last year.

And him. He still lingers on here at the Hilltop, which Tara runs with Jesus and Aaron. Daryl hunts to feed the growing population but otherwise comes and goes as he pleases. Mostly it pleases him to stay.

Mostly.

But once a month or so he journeys to Alexandria to check up on Michonne and Judith. He recognizes the baby he once held in his arms less and less with each passing month. And once a week or so he makes a trip to the Kingdom as an ambassador of the Hilltop, dines at Carol's table, and stays the night on the strange couch that rests beneath her bedroom windowsill. She calls it a  _chaise lounge_ , but it's not much for lounging on.

Carol's changed. She's come into her own as the queen of the largest community in their known world. He's probably the only thing left that roots her to the Carol she once was, and he wonders sometimes if she wishes he'd stop visiting, just let those old roots unravel, let her move on from the memories that still haunt her dreams.

But he can't. He can't stop visiting, because she was the first person to ever believe in him. The first person to ever  _see_  the man he could become. And sometimes he fears that if she doesn't see him…he'll simply vanish.

Daryl closes his eyes and breaths in Hershey's scent. The boy smells of forest leaves and the baked cinnamon apples he had for dessert, and his soft, safe breaths are like a lullaby that sings Daryl back to sleep.

[*]

Daryl bows deeply at his waist, the way he always does when he comes to visit Carol, just to hear her say, "Stop it! "

"As you please, your highness," he replies as he rises to his slouched stature. She's smiling  _that_  smile, the one she only gives him. Or at least he likes to think so.

The Kingdom seems brighter and bigger every time he comes to visit it, more full of vegetables and animals and children and life. He doesn't know how she does it.

He eats in her private chambers, a converted classroom, at a two-person table in her kitchenette, a meal she's cooked herself. "Don't have a royal chef yet?" he asks, and she says, "Stop it."

The longbow she started using three years ago hangs on the wall beyond the table, and he thinks he'd like to challenge her to an archery competition tomorrow, but he's leaving at daybreak, returning to the Hilltop, and this will be his last visit to the Kingdom. He has to let her go, free her from this shadow of the old world, this specter from a past she's moved so far beyond.

He'll tell her in the morning.

But tonight, he eats her food and soaks in her smiles, and curls like a stray dog on her fancy chaise lounge, where he drifts off to sleep beneath a fleece blanket, his boots strewn haphazardly on the faux marble classroom floor, his dirty socks stuffed inside.

He dreams of Rick, vanishing in flames. He dreams of Carl, breathing hard as he sits back against the storm sewer walls. He dreams of Beth, slumping to the floor of the hospital hallway. He dreams of Merle, flesh dangling from his mouth, his eyes glassy and hollow. He dreams of Sophia, lurching out of Hershel's barn.

He awakes with a loud grunt, a cold sweat lining his brow and trickling into the coarse graying hairs of his beard.

"What's wrong?" Carol asks from her bed several feet away.

"I had a bad dream."

"Come here," she says.

Daryl pads barefoot across the cool floor. Carol flings back the quilt so he can crawl under it, and then she drapes it over him again. She draws him toward her, eases his head down on her breasts, and strokes the thick strands of his unruly hair. She bends to kiss head, her lips soft, familiar, and warm.

"This is my last visit," he murmurs in the darkness, but even as he forces the words from his lips, he knows it's a lie.

So does she. "No, Daryl," she replies softly. "It's not."

Daryl breaths in Carol's scent. She smells of rose water and handmade soap, of her leather archery gloves and the mesquite chips she burned to cook tonight's meal. And when he raises his head and dares to kiss her, she tastes of dandelion wine and smoky pork. He pulls away, apologizing, but she draws him back again, urges his head against her chest, and wraps him up in her slender arms.

"Tell me a story," he says.

"Once there was a little broken boy," she begins, "who grew up to be a man…"

He closes his eyes, lets the words wash over him, and slides into sleep.

[*]

Daryl awakens with a sudden panic thudding his heart. The memory of his lips on hers explodes in his brain. A wave of childish shame washes over him and then breaks and fades when he remembers she didn't rebuff him. As a young child, he was pushed away enough times by his parents that he gave up reaching out for them. But the muscle memory of his rejection is still there, powerful enough that every time he touches Carol, some part of him expects her to shrug him off, even though she never has.

But he's never _kissed_ her before. And now as he drags himself groggily into a sitting position, rubs his eyes, and feels the emptiness of the bed beside him, he wonders what it means that he did, and what it means that she didn't push him away.

He goes looking for her, as the spring birds sing from the young fruit trees in the Kingdom. It's not  _looking_ , not really, because he knows where she'll be at this hour, where she's been every morning he's visited.

The sounds of the Kingdom waking rise all around him – children laughing or whining on their way to school, the gardeners working among the greens. He takes his time wending his way down the rocky path beyond the basketball courts, towards the woody patch inside the outer fence, and to the graveyard. He hovers on the outskirts of those graves, waiting quietly.

Carol crouches before Ezekiel's cross, which she wipes down with a rag. Daryl thinks how much he likes her hair this length. She chopped off the long locks in mourning, but it’s since grown back. It's a little longer than when he first met her, just long enough to make a light, feminine curl behind her ear. She looks so good with her hair like that, so… _classic_. He doesn't know why, exactly, but something about it emphasizes the soft beauty of her face, the subtle turn of her lips, the boldness of her blue eyes. Not that he would ever tell her he likes it better short. She grew it long because she _could_ , because she felt safe with Ezekiel, because the man treated her well.

Daryl never saw much chemistry between the two, but he supposes Carol wasn't looking for passion after so many years on the wrong side of an angry and jealous man. Ezekiel's even keel, so unlike Daryl's own hot flares of feeling, was probably exactly what she needed to root herself and build up the world around her.

But maybe what she needs now is  _him_. Maybe he was wrong to think she wants to be rid of the last ghost of her past. Maybe she needs to keep one root there still, in that old quarry camp at the beginning of the end, to remember who she was, and why she became who she became.

Carol rises slowly to a standing position and tucks the rag into the back pocket of her jeans. It hangs over the top, and when she turns, he wants to look at his boots, but instead he freezes, and it's all too clear he's been watching her. A bittersweet smile tugs the corners of her lips as she strolls past the other graves toward him.

"Hey," he mutters, not knowing how to explain his spying presence.

"Hey yourself," she says softly. She jerks her head back toward the king's grave. "I just like to keep it clean."

"Mhmhm." If he died, would she visit his grave and wipe his cross clean? Daryl looks down at his hands, at the dirt and oil deep beneath his fingernails, like a permanent stain. 

"Breakfast?" she asks.

"Could eat."

She begins walking, and he falls in step beside her. He wants to know what that kiss meant, if it bothered her, or if she liked it - if she was just taking pity on him, or if it might happen again someday. He wants to know, but he doesn't dare ask. So instead he asks, "Hell's Henry? Ain't seen 'em since I got here."

"He's at Oceanside. He wants to spend the spring and summer there learning to fish, he says, but I'm pretty sure it has more to do with a girl. I doubt he'll be coming back."

Daryl studies her face for lines of sadness or concern, but she just seems resigned to the fact.

"I guess I'm an empty nester." There's such an aching tone in her voice that it strikes him like a slap across the face that she might be just as lonely as he is – surrounded by community, burdened and privileged with service to their people – and yet still alone.

He stops walking. "Ya a'ight?" he asks.

She's a few steps ahead of him now, so she stops and turns. "Gotta be," she says.

"Do ya?"

She sighs and glances around the Kingdom she helped build, this peaceful, vibrant place that has remained free from war for eleven months, when the alliance had to fight back a mutual threat, and Ezekiel and Maggie were killed. "I know I'm in charge. But sometimes, I think…I just want to get away. Get away from it… _all_. Do you know what I mean?"

"Ya askin'  _me_?"

She chuckles, and so does he. If anyone should know what that urge feels like, it's him. Daryl stays at the Hilltop most of the time these days, but there are still probably a hundred nights a year he spends alone in the woods, camping while on a hunt.

Carol hugs herself. "Just…leave it all behind for a while. Not forever. Just for a while."

"Hell, then do it. Ya got people who can handle shit. Come to the Hilltop for a bit."

"That's not getting away from it all. Our communities are knit so much more closely together now. And there are too many memories at the Hilltop. Too many graves."

Daryl's eyes flit away from her. He digs in the dirt with his toe. "Road trip?" The words are out before he realizes how ridiculous they sound.

She snorts.

"Yeah. 'S stupid."

Except she stops laughing and he can feel her eyes on him. "Maybe not," she says quietly. "There's so much of Virginia we haven't explored. There could still be supplies out there somewhere. Maybe I should just take a horse and cart and…roam."

He looks up from a weed clawing its desperate way through a spot in the earth. "Nah, no ya ain't, not like some kind of Lone Ranger."

She smirks. "Well, unless  _you're_  volunteering to be my sidekick – "

"-Just say when, Kemosabe."

[*]

Daryl shoves the lightly crumpled paper into an envelope and hands it to the pony express runner. He needs to let the Hilltop know he'll be gone for a while, but not more than three weeks. Carol needs to be back by mid-May to prepare for the Kingdom's annual trade fair.

He tells him he’s taking the Hilltop’s horse, the one he rode to the Kingdom. The triumvirate isn't going to be happy about that, and he'll probably hear it when he gets back. He could leave it and tell them to come claim it at the Kingdom, but then he and Carol would have to share a horse, and as much as he misses the days she used to ride with him on his motorcycle, they might need more saddle space to haul discovered supplies.

Carol cinches saddle packs to either side of her black stallion Lancelot and ties a bedroll behind the saddle, and Daryl does the same. The packs are largely empty now, except for a few supplies for the journey, but they hope to fill them completely before they return.

It's afternoon when they finally set out, and the sun is a bright yellow-white light in the strangely cloudless sky. Daryl shields his eyes against the glare as he rides through the open gate behind Carol. He knows she has a plan for this road trip, because she's taken the lead. "Where to, yer Highness?" he asks.

"Don't  _call_  me that," she warns, but she's smiling.

Daryl spurs the white spotted mare, which Hershey named Freckles because of the gray-brown splotches that cover its body, forward to draw up fully beside her. He shifts uncomfortably in the saddle. He's become a better rider since the gas spoiled, but he's never fully gotten used to the feel of flesh and blood between his legs. He misses his iron horse something awful. He even misses the smell of the fumes.

Daryl’s converted his bike to run on ethanol, and he still rides it a few miles here or there on occasion, when the Hilltop gets a bumper corn crop and lets him take the dregs to make fuel, but he can't make enough to last for long, not even long enough for a journey to the Kingdom. He knows the Hilltop’s rulers only indulge his joy riding because they want to keep him happy to keep him around - to keep him helping to fill that smokehouse. "Know ya got someplace in mind. So where we headed? The beach? Virginia wine country?"

Carol's bright blue eyes twinkle. "Do you think we should, Pookie? A romantic getaway at a little B&B at the top of a vineyard?"

"Don't  _call_  me that," he warns, but he's smiling, as much as he ever smiles, lips closed, eyes softening lightly.

And, hell, maybe he's blushing a little, too, because his cheeks feel too hot for April, and the taste of her lips still lingers on his, even though it was over twelve hours ago they kissed. Not that he's counting. Not that he cares she hasn't mentioned it, one way or the other.

But…well….it's goddamn confusing, is all.

Usually her flirting is easy to dismiss as a joke. But this afternoon, he's not so sure. What if this trip was a proposal of sorts, and he's just too dense to see it?  _Nah._ He'd be more dense to think it was. He wrote that possibility off long ago, the day he saw her kissing Tobin in Alexandria, the day he realized all that flirting with him was  _practice_  for other men, which was what he'd suspected all along. He just had to see the evidence before he let the last of the hope die.

And it was just as well. He wouldn't know what to do with a girlfriend. He's figured out what to do with a friend though, and he's pretty damn good at it, too.  

Daryl settled, as much as he's capable of settling. He became a friend, an uncle, a provider for the community, and even a source of wisdom – someone for the triumvirate to turn to at times for advice, an idea that would have had Merle in stitches. He's not much more articulate than he was back on the farm, and he's only a little bit cleaner than he was at the prison, but he's a wiser, better man. Carol played her part in that, and he'll never forget how big a part it was.

"Go wherever the hell ya want," he says.  

"I was thinking…" she muses as her horse saunters down the road, the sounds of the Kingdom now behind them. "I've always wanted to trace my roots and see where my ancestors lived. You ever have that urge? You know…genealogical research?"

"Hell no. Why would I?"

"You've never wanted to know more about where you came from?"

"Know where I came from. From an asshole daddy and a drunk mama. M’ancestors were likely worse. Probably a bunch of horse thieves." He peers at her. "You wanna go back to Georgia?" He hates to tell her no, but that's just not possible, not if she expects to be back by mid-May, and he won't leave the Hilltop for more than a month. He has to hunt this summer and fall to help stock the smokehouse for the winter.  

"My roots aren't in Georgia. My mother's people were from Virginia, going all the way back to colonial Jamestown. Or so she told me."

"So you wanna go to  _Jamestown_?"

Carol nods. "I think I do. I want to go to Jamestown and trace my roots."

Daryl snorts. "A'ight, yer majesty. Let's go find yer royal roots."

Carol glowers at him, and he smirks and spurs his horse into a gallop.

The hooves of Carol's horse thunder close behind.


	2. Lunch at the DQ

Grime and dried-up white and black bird shit splatter the faded blue handicap parking sign. Daryl ties his horse to the pole and looks up. "Reminds me of that painting we saw in that office."

"It was a brilliant work of modern art."

"Pfft."

Burger wrappers and napkins drift in the spring breeze like leaves across the nearly abandoned parking lot. A pick-up truck sits with its tailgate open. In its bed, candy toppings that have melted and then refrozen season after season form a putrid dung-like lump inside clear boxes. Someone never finished his looting.

"Dumb Fries," Daryl mutters as Carol pours water in a pan and the horses dip their heads to drink. "What a dumb ass name for a town."

"I think it's pronounced dum–frees."

Daryl peers through the shattered front window of the Dairy Queen and sees no walkers. His thick black boots crunch over the glass on the sidewalk, and he bangs on the glass door with his fist to make sure there's nothing inside. He's about to lean back in a casual waiting position when a walker thuds against the glass door and thrashes its jaw. Daryl leaps in place, and Carol laughs.

He walks sideways away from the door. "Hell he come from?"

"Under one of the booths, I think."

They wait, and soon enough, there's a second one. Daryl loads his crossbow and whistles for the walkers to make their way to the busted-out window. When they do, he shoots them one by one straight in the forehead. He enjoys the target practice – these are the first walkers he's needed to shoot all day. The rest they just rode around.

Daryl swings his bow back on his shoulder. He's just put his hands down on the windowsill and is about to boost himself up to crawl through cut glass when Carol says, "Hey, Kemosabe, did you think to try the door?"

He backs away, turns, and sees her holding the unlocked door wide open. When they walk inside, he goes to recover his first arrow while Carol scoops up two handguns that have fallen to the floor. "Guess they were looting and one of them decided he wanted everything. Did they shoot each other?"

Daryl cranes his neck to peer down at the mangled face of one of the walkers. "Yeah. Maybe. 'N over a few pounds of candy." He roughly rips out his second arrow.

Carol has dropped the magazines from the guns and now she's popping out the bullets and counting them as she lines them up one by one on the dusty orange table top. "Fourteen total."

"Caliber?" Daryl asks.

".38. I call dibs."

"Ya want the guns, too?"

"No, I have more guns than I know what to do with in the Kingdom. They're kind of useless with so little ammunition."

Daryl picks up one of the guns from the table, double checks it's unloaded, slaps the now empty magazine back inside, and then drops it in his pack. "Hershey needs one to practice dry firin'."

"Hershel's barely five."

"Yeah. Late start.”

Carol shakes her head, crouches down, and searches the walker's pockets. She finds another magazine loaded with seven bullets. "Then I suppose you can have this one."

The stench of long-spoiled milk is even greater than that of decaying walker flesh, so they make quick work of searching the kitchen, which yields nothing salvageable except three unopened, well-sealed ketchup bottles, two unopened canisters of salt, and a roll of paper towels, still in the plastic wrap. But these days, that's a jackpot find, especially the bullets, which are like gold.

They sit on the curb to eat a snack from their packs. They don't want to eat inside with that stench. Carol hands Daryl a bag of pork rinds made from the skin of the Kingdom's pigs, and he gives her a handful of raisins dried from the Hilltop's grapes.

"This really brings back memories," she says. "My first date was at a Dairy Queen."

"Hell kind of white trash piece of shit takes a girl on a first date to the DQ?"

Carol snorts.

"Hell," Daryl continues, "even Merle took his first dates to a proper sit-down place. Waffle House."

"I've never heard the Waffle House referred to as a proper sit-down place."

Daryl smirks. "They had waitresses."

"Well, my first date was only thirteen. So I think you should cut him some slack. Harold Harrison."

" _Harold_? Fuck kind of name is  _Harold_?"

"Harold's a perfectly good name!" Carol protests. "It's a king's name."

“Pfft.”

"Harold Harrison. He had his own paper route, so he had a little cash. He invited me to ride bikes with him after school up to the Dairy Queen. His treat, he said. I wasn't really thinking. I was so hungry. So I ordered the chicken finger basket  _and_  a Coke  _and_  the biggest ice cream sundae they had."

"Dick move."

"So I learned. He was counting out his quarters nervously on the countertop, and then he just ordered a cup of water for himself. I felt terrible."

"Should of felt terrible. Poor kid."

"Well I  _did_  share my sundae with him."

"The sundae  _he_  bought ya, ya mean?"

Carol shrugs.

"Hope ya at least gave 'em a blowjob after."

"We were thirteen!" Carol gasps.

Daryl flushes and stares down inside his canteen. Then he busies himself with a deep swig. When the neck of the canteen slurps out of his mouth, she's still looking suspiciously at him, so he asks, "How long y'all date? You 'n  _Harold Harrison_?"

"Three years."

Daryl's eyes widen. "Ya shittin' me?" He expected her to say a week or two. The longest middle-school romance in his neck of Georgia lasted four weeks, but that was some kind of record.

"Eighth grade through tenth grade. I thought we'd end up married."

"What happened?"

"I wouldn't put out. I just wasn't ready. But Kimberly Jansen was."

"Skank."

Carol smiles lightly. "Harold broke my heart. But I learned my lesson. I put out right away with the next boyfriend." She sighs and twists the lid onto her canteen. "And with the next. And then with Ed. I thought I _had_ to. But after I buried Ed, I decided – I'm  _not_  going to be that girl anymore. That's why I didn't have sex with Tobin."

"Are you shittin' me?" She lived in his house for a while. Shared his bed, Daryl assumed.

"No. I didn't let it go that far. I was enjoying being in control of that. And with Zeke…I suppose I wanted to see how serious he was. So I told him not until our wedding night."

" _Now_  yer shittin' me." He knows they slept together before their wedding night. She told him Ezekiel snored. Did they really just  _sleep_?

She shakes her head. "Nope. I drew that line. And he was patient and understanding, as Zeke always was." She pops her last raisin in her mouth, chews, and swallows. "I just wanted to do things  _differently_. But in retrospect, maybe waiting wasn't the best idea."

The last thing Daryl wants to think about is Carol and Ezekiel having sex, but he can't help it - curiosity gets the better of him. "How so?"

"The sex was…" She shrugs and clips her canteen to the pack that sits on the curb beside her. "Mediocre. But by then we were married. I'd taken a  _vow_. And it didn't seem right to break a vow made to a good and honest man who loved me. I liked the family we'd built with Henry. The partnership we'd crafted in leading the Kingdom. And, if I'm honest, I liked being wooed. Being treated like a queen. So I avoided the sex until it had been too long. He wouldn't  _say_  it had been too long, but I could tell by the way he would mope around the Kingdom."

Conflicting emotions slam against each other in Daryl's chest. There's that jealous part of him that's glad she never slept with Tobin and that gloats to learn that Ezekiel was far from a king in bed, but then there's that other part of him that longs for Carol to be happy and simply feels sad to think that when she finally had a non-abusive marriage, it wasn't everything she dreamed it would be. "Damn," he mutters. "That mean ya ain't _never_ had sex you liked?"

"I never _hated_ sex. Except sometimes with Ed." Daryl tenses instinctively. "With the two boyfriends I had sex with before Ed, and with Zeke...I just didn't _enjoy_  it all that much. But maybe that's just what sex is like. Maybe people exaggerate about how good it is."

"Ain't no exaggeration."

"Well, you're a man."

"Maggie sure liked it."

Carol chuckles. "Remember that day she and Glenn wouldn't come down from the prison tower?"

Daryl ignores her question. "Did ya tell 'em?"

"That everyone could hear them? No! Why would I."

"No, did ya tell 'Zeke? That it weren't no good."

"Why would I have  _told_  him? That would just have hurt his feelings."

"'Cause then maybe he could of done somethin' 'bout it!"

"Done  _what_?" she asks.

"Dunno. Somethin' else than whatever the hell he was doin'!" He's pretty damn sure Ezekiel would have tried to please the woman he loved, if she'd told him how. "Gotta tell a guy. He don't just  _know_."

"Tell him what?"

"What ya like," Daryl growls in frustration. He's not even sure why he's so bothered by this. He just knows that if he was in Ezekiel's place, he'd hate to leave Carol disappointed and not even  _know_  it. "What ya don't. If ya want him to do somethin'. If ya don't want 'em to do somethin'. Touch here, not there. Harder. Slower…" Daryl suddenly realizes what he's saying and flushes, ending in a a mutter, "Whatever."

"But then he would just feel hurt and self-defensive, and the sex probably wouldn't get any better." She stands from the curb and slings her backpack over her shoulders. "Come on. We need to find decent shelter before the sun sets."

Daryl tries to process these words that have come out of Carol's mouth – the mouth of this bad ass woman who hasn't taken shit from  _anyone_  in years, this general in war, this queen who rules and defends an entire Kingdom but apparently still thinks she shouldn't tell a man what to do in bed. He just can't wrap his mind around it.

"Are you coming?" she asks as she unties the horses. She vaults herself up on hers.

Daryl murmurs something indecipherable, rises to his feet, and mounts his speckled mare. Carol's already spurred her mare into a trot. He clicks his tongue at Freckles, gives the horse a light kick of his heel, and soon catches up.

[*]

As their camp for the night, they choose a sturdy brick house in the midst of a wide open, overgrown field. It has plenty of grass for the horses to graze on, and a chimney that indicates there's a fireplace for cooking food. It's far from the tree line, so they'll be able to see any threat coming a half mile away.

They tether the horses to the tall columns that hold up a balcony with peeling white paint. Daryl secures barbwire to the side of the house and unrolls it to form a perimeter around part of the front yard while Carol drapes the horses with bells. This way, they'll have time and warning if walkers try to come and feast on them.

When Daryl's done, he finds Carol using a handkerchief to rub off the dirt on the black plaque by the front door.

"Hell you doin' that for? We ain't movin' in."

"I just want to see who lived here. Why it's famous. This house looks like it was built in the early 1800s. Can you read any of that?"

There's too much grime, and Daryl can only make out a faded gold word here or there. "Says Robert E. Lee fucked here."

Carol rolls her eyes and puts the dirty handkerchief in her back pocket. "Get a rock, why don't you."

Daryl tries the door handle first. He won't be fooled again. But it's locked, so he finds a big rock and smashes it against one of the window panels beside the front door until it finally shatters. Then he reaches inside, fumbles, and finally manages to unlock the door.

While Carol opens it, he poises his crossbow to clear the way. She draws her knife and prowls in behind him. Carefully, they clear the entire house, downstairs and upstairs, but it’s empty. Carol pauses in the last room upstairs, where a canopied bed and dresser are roped off and a long informational sign stands before them. Daryl comes to a stop beside her.

"During the Ciivil War," she reads, "the house served as a hospital for both Confederate and Union soldiers, depending on who was in charge of the area at the time. A cannonball struck the house and remained lodged in the wall for a hundred years until a souvenir hunter stole it the 1960s."

"Hell's a souvenir hunter?"

"Someone who hunts souvenirs, I presume." She laughs to herself. "Ezekiel was a bit of a souvenir hunter. He took us on a quest for a projection bulb once."

"Hell for?"

"To show movies to the children."

"Why'n hell didn't ya just use a DVD player 'n a TV?" There must have been a dozen of them in that school, and the main school building has solar power.  

"That wouldn't have been romantic enough for Ezekiel. That was one of the things I both loved and hated about him. He was foolishly idealistic. Like Henry."

_Foolishly idealistic._  That's one way to put it, Daryl supposes.  _Dumb ass_  would be his own word choice, but he doesn't tell Carol that.

"Although….I guess that's what I'm being, huh?" she asks. "Dragging you on this silly road trip."

"Ya couldn't drag me if ya tried. 'M too damn heavy for ya." She snorts and he ducks his head and smiles. "C'mon," he urges. "'S go back down. Saw some liquor in that fancy study."

When they get to the study, Daryl heads straight for the decanter on the shelf behind the leather chair, but Carol wanders over to a historical ledger on display on a pedestal. The rays of the setting sun dance over the open, yellowed pages. "This is a record of all the wounded soldiers who stayed here during the Civil War," she tells him. "My mother told me my great-great grandfather fought in the Civil War."

"Yeah? He fight under Lee?" Daryl asks as he twists and tugs at the top of the decanter. The dark brown liquid sloshes inside. "Or Jackson?"

"He fought for the Army of Virginia, not the Army of Northern Virginia."

"Ya mean he turned coat?" The top pops, and Daryl sets the crystal knob on the desk. "Fought for the damn Yankees?"

"He stayed  _loyal_ to the Union," Carol corrects him.

He sniffs at the brown liquid. "'S yer great-great granddaddy's name?"

"Jonathan Arnold Mercer. My mother said we could trace our lineage all the way back to one of the FFVs."

"Who vee whats?"

"First Families of Virginia. The wealthy elite who descended from the colonists who settled Jamestown and Williamsburg. She said I was born to great things, that she'd been well-off herself, before she married my father, who squandered the family fortune gambling in Mississippi and then took off with some other woman the week after I was born."

"Yer mama was rich?"

"I don't think so. I think that was just a story she liked to tell, so I would dream of escaping our tiny Georgia town. Of course I never did."

"Sure ya did. Yer a goddamn  _queen_."

Carol smiles. She runs her finger down the ledger and turns a page. "But my mother's maiden name really  _was_  Mercer. That much is true. I've seen her birth certificate."

Daryl takes a swig of whatever's in the decanter. Brown liquid spews out his mouth and splatters all over a painting of the Army of Northern Virginia. The liquor drips down the curled Confederate battle flag at the far edge of the canvas.

"Spoiled?" she asks.

"Tastes like rancid beef."

"It's been open too long, but there's some completely unopened bottles in there." She points to the locked liquor cabinet above the shelf that held the decanter. "I guess the docent got thirsty."

"The who?" Daryl begins rummaging through the desk drawers in search of the key to the liquor cabinet.

"The docent. You know, a museum guide. I always wanted to be a docent when I was a little girl."

Daryl seizes a small, iron key from next to a stapler remover in the top drawer. "Who the fuck wants to grow up to be a dough cent?"

"Me,  _that's_  who. I just told you."

"Mean 'sides you," he answers while he unlocks the cabinet.

"Why?" Carol turns another page. "What did you want to grow up to be when you were a boy?"

"Nascar driver." The cabinet creaks open and Daryl coughs at the emerging dust. He begins to draw down the bottles and set them on the desk.

"Well, my goal was a little more realistic. Or maybe not. I dropped out of high school my senior year to work full-time when my mom got sick. There's no chance I could have gotten a history Ph.D. And I probably couldn't have been a docent even if I had. I was much too shy."

Daryl snorts.

"I  _was_ ," she insists as she turns another page in the book and scans the names. " You know how shy I was when I met you."

The bottles clank against the oak desk as Daryl lines them up. "Hell you want to be a dough cent for then?"

"I liked history. I liked learning about it. And I suppose I liked to imagine people would care about what I had to say." She shrugs and starts helping him take down the rest of the unopened bottles. "No one ever cared what I had to say."

"Well they sure as fuck care now, _Queen Carol_."

She smiles and returns to study the ledger. Daryl's looking over the labels on the bottles by the fading light of the sun when she gasps suddenly. "I found it! I found his name!"

Daryl strolls over and looks down at her finger on the page, below the dark black cursive swirls of an ancient ink pen. He has no idea why she's so excited about this, why she gives two shits about some long dead ancestors of hers, in a time that doesn't exist anymore, in a  _world_  that doesn't exist. But the quivering smile on her face twists his gut into all kinds of strange knots.

"He was wounded in the left leg," she says. "He stayed here." She laughs. "I can't believe we found this!" She kisses his cheek, which leaves a burning sensation on his flesh. "Thank you for giving me this."

Daryl chews on his bottom lip. He hasn't  _given_  her a damn thing. He just came along with her. But he likes that she thinks he has.

"Even if no evidence of my lineage turns up in Jamestown, I can always say I found this." She rips the page out of the ledger.

Say it to who, Daryl wonders, say it why? But clearly it's important to her, this journey to explore her roots in a world that has become untangled. "C'mon," he mutters gently. "Losin' light. Need to get settled in."


	3. A Night in Dumfries

 

While Carol breaks up a chair and tears up a book for firewood and kindling, Daryl goes to check on the horses and snag something for supper. He comes back with a snake, which he skinned outside, and sets it to roasting on a spit over the fire. She's laid out both their sleeping bags in front of the fireplace, unzipped, one on top of the other as a blanket. Apparently they're sharing a bed tonight. His nerves dance with nervous electricity.

They sit on the couch to eat, and when they've had their snake bites, water, and dried apricots from the Kingdom, Daryl grabs one of the already opened bottles of alcohol they've put on the coffee table and takes a timid sip.

"How's that one?" Carol asks.

"Ain't good." He tries another open one – vodka this time - and declares it "drinkable" before passing the bottle to Carol.

"Does this count as a vegetable?" she asks.

Daryl huffs. She rolls the liquid on her tongue for a minute before swallowing. "I can barely taste anything."

"Well, yeah. 'S vodka."

"Try another open one," she says.

"How'd I get to be yer royal taster?"

"Fine. I'll try." She grabs a bottle of apple schnapps, sips, coughs, and chokes it down.

"Thatta a no?"

"That's a no," she confirms.

"I'll try the tequila."

In the end, they find only the vodka, gin, and brandy to be drinkable.

"The open bottles are for our road trip," Carol determines. "But how are we divvying up the  _unopened_  bottles?"

"Kingdom can have the Southern Comfort. Hilltop'll take the Jack Daniels. Kingdom can– "

"- I don't think so.  _Hilltop_  can have the Southern Comfort."

"Shoot ya for the Jack."

"Fine." She makes a fist. So does he. "Scissors," she chants, "papers, rock, shoot!" His hand is spread out like paper, and her fingers are opened in scissors. "I win."

"Nah, this is magic paper."

She slides her fingers over and under his and squeezes.

"See, can't cut through," he says.

She squeezes  _hard_. "Ow," he complains and draws his hand away. "Best two outta three."

In the end, the six unopened bottles of liquor are divvied up and packed away for the two communities. Carol turns on the couch, her arm stretched out across the back behind Daryl's shoulders, and says, "Let's play a drinking game."

"'S not."

"But it's a road trip! What good is a road trip without a drinking game?"

"What drinkin' game?"

"Truth or Dare. We could say you have to tell the truth or take a drink." She looks at the expression on his face and realizes her mistake. "Never mind. You'd just always take a drink. Let's say you only  _get_  to take a drink if you answer the question truthfully."

"'N what about dares?"

"No dares."

"So's just truth?"

"Truth and drink!" she says, and he can't help but smile at her childish pleasure in her own name choice.

"Ain't much of a  _game_. More like talkin' 'n drinkin'."

"You got something better to do?"

"Sleep maybe." She doesn't say anything, but in the warm glow of the fireplace, the soft lines of her face crinkle in disappointment, and he instantly recants. "A'ight, a'ight. I'll play yer stupid game."

Carol smiles a little deviously, as if she knew all along he would. She leans back against the arm of the couch. "Okay, truth and drink. Where did  _you_  take  _your_  first date? I know it wasn't the DQ."

Daryl's never been on a date in his life. He finally lost his virginity at nineteen to Merle's girlfriend's sister. She must have been thirty, or maybe she was only twenty and she just  _looked_  thirty because of the drugs. Daryl later learned Merle paid her to come onto him.  _Because it's goddamn shameful_ , Merle told him,  _a Dixon and still a virgin at nineteen._   _God knows you weren't gonna get that cherry popped on your own._

Daryl hated Merle for that. He was suspicious of every woman who showed interest in him after that, though he couldn't help but fuck a few anyway because the fucking felt good. He always assumed they had some motive other than genuine interest in him. Either they just wanted to get off and didn't much care who did the getting, or they wanted Daryl to buy them some drinks at the bar, or Merle was giving them drugs. But he was pretty sure it never had anything to do with  _him_  personally.

"None of yer damn business," he growls.

"Touchy!"

"Sorry," he mutters.

"It's not like I asked something really  _personal._ And even if I had…it's just  _me_."

Just  _her_. She says that like she isn't the person who, more than anyone else in this entire world, he longs to have respect him.

"I thought we told each other things," she says. "We used to, anyway. Didn't we?"

She says those words with such a tint of sadness that he bursts out, "Ain't never been on a date. Ain't never took a girl nowhere."

"Ah."

"Ain't a virgin," he clarifies.

"I assumed not."

"So…yeah. Just random fuckin'." He seizes the bottle of vodka and takes a drink.

Carol doesn't look particularly surprised by this revelation, but she doesn't look disgusted or disappointed either. He wonders for a minute why he thought she would be. She's right. It's  _Carol_. She's seen the darkest underside of him over the years, they've lived in different communities and walked in different worlds, she's been with more sheltered men with less shameful pasts, and yet after all that she's still  _here_ , sitting right beside  _him_  on this couch.

"Your turn to ask a question," she says.

There's a dozen questions he wants to ask her, rattling around in his brain. Did she marry Ezekiel because she  _really_  loved him? Or did she just respect him and want the fantasy family she'd never had? Why does she think the sex wouldn't have gotten better if she'd told the king what to do? Does she think Ezekiel wouldn't have listened? Or does she think a man  _can't_  improve? That he's either good or not, from the start? Did she like that kiss last night? Why hasn't she mentioned it? Would she want another? Or is he a terrible kisser, and she doesn't think he could ever get better by trying? That night when she brought him dinner on watch at the prison – and she asked if he wanted to fool around – that was a  _joke_ , right? What would she have done if he'd said  _yes_?

But he doesn't ask any of those questions. "This genealogy shit," he says. "Why's it so damn important to ya?"

"I guess…" She muses on his question for a while, and he waits. "I want to think it matters."

"That what matters?"

"That they lived. Because I want to think it matters that  _we_  lived, that we're building this world for our heirs, the way one of my ancestors helped build Jamestown, and another helped preserve the Union. I want to think that what we're building means something, and one day our heirs will want to know about us, too."

"Mhm." It makes sense, in a way, when she puts it like that. "But I ain't gonna have no heirs." He doesn't have a Henry.

"You're going to have a thousand heirs. The generations that come will inherit what you've helped build."

"Ain't no one gonna wanna know 'bout me though."

"Legends will get passed down as our communities grow. And Hershel and Judith both think of you as an uncle. Their kids will know about you. Trust me." She takes the vodka bottle, sips, and sets it back on the table. "Okay, my turn. Who do you think is the prettiest woman at the Hilltop?"

What the hell kind of question is that? "Dunno."

"If you don't answer, you don't get to drink."

"Did answer. Dunno. Don't think about it."

A scolding look crosses her face. "Really? You've never  _once_  looked at a woman at the Hilltop and thought she was attractive?"

Daryl's not the best reader of women, but he gets a weird sensation this is some kind of trap. He settles on the oldest woman he can think of. "Tammy," he says.

Carol laughs. "I bet she  _was_  beautiful in her day. I was, too, believe it or not."

" _Was_?" he asks almost angrily. "In yer  _day_?"

The smile she gives him brightens her eyes in the dancing flames of the fire and makes him nervous. He reaches for the bottle and takes his sip. He can't think of anything he has the balls to ask, so he just flips her question back on her. "Who ya think's the best-looking man at the Hilltop?"

He doesn't understand why she chuckles.

"I think I'll skip my drink this round," Carol answers. "My turn for a question. Who do you find to be the most  _annoying_  person at Hilltop?"

He blows out a puff of air, in a sort-of "Whoo."

"Too long a list?" she asks with a smirk.

"Yeah. Not sure who to put at the top of that one." He thinks a minute. "Probably Aidan. Got that… _voice_. And he's so damn…sanctimonious."

"Sanctimonious?"

"I got a vocabulary."

"I know." She hands him the vodka bottle. "I don't know where you got it though. I've never seen you pick up a book." That's not true. She saw him pick up  _Surviving Childhood Abuse_  when it fell out of his backpack. She saw it and didn't say a word, because she knew it would only embarrass him if she did, and he appreciated her silence. "I think the last one I saw you read was that one Andrea gave you after she shot you."

"Couldn't finish it. Didn't have no pictures." He takes a sip.

"You read it cover to cover. Twice in one day."

"Only 'cause I didn't have shit else to do."

"Why don't you like to read for pleasure?" she asks.

"'Cause readin' don't accomplish nothin'. 'Less yer readin' for information. And 's my turn for a question, not yers."

"Shoot."

"How come ya read them trashy romance novels? Aren't ya too smart for that shit?"

She looks embarrassed and sounds defensive. "What makes you think I do?"

"Seen 'em in that little house ya used to live in. Seen 'em in your room at the school. Can tell by the covers."

"Sometimes I like not having to think." She slips the bottle from his hand, tips it back, and swallows a big sip this time before setting it on the coffee table. "Why didn't you come to my wedding?"

His muscles tense the way they used to when he heard the growl of a walker, before killing a walker became second nature. "Ya know why. 'S lookin' for Rick's body."

"You couldn't take one day off from the search?"

"Thought I was gettin' close," he lies.

But he didn't even look for Rick's body that day. He went out hunting walkers instead, for hours, wetting his knife with blood, kicking and stabbing and not much caring if he slipped up and one of them sank its teeth into his arm. One almost did, and he would have let it, too, if that dog hadn't come out of nowhere and started barking at the walkers. Dog is back home at the Hilltop, now, nursing a sprained ankle, being spoiled with loving by Hershel and the other kids.

Daryl takes a big sip.

"Your turn. "

He runs a finger around the rim of the bottle until it whistles. "Was it happy?" he ventures, since she brought up the wedding. "Yer marriage?"

She's taking a long time to answer. "I was content," she says at last. "And I hadn't felt content since…well, since those few months in the prison, when it was peaceful, and we were building. Before..." She trails off.

"Mhmhm..." Daryl mutters. "That group of ours, felt like we could do anything together. Like...like we was family."

"But Rick kicked me out of the family. And no one protested. Everyone just…went along with it."

"Wasn't  _there_ , Carol. He didn't give me no say."

"But you forgave him instantly."

Is that why she left Alexandria? Because she didn't feel like she could be a part of the family again? Is that why she pulled away from him? For Tobin, and then for the king?

"Rick went back for Merle," he says, "even after Merle practically tried to kill 'em. Rick stepped up to lead when no one else would. He kept us alive. 'N…he was the first man ever respected me. My father never did. My brother never did. Merle loved me, in his way, but he didn't  _respect_  me." He turns his head slightly to look at her. "I was angry he sent you away, but bein' angry didn't solve nothin'. It would have killed me, if I'd held a grudge against him." Carol doesn't reply, so he asks, "Ya still angry at me 'bout that?"

"No. I was never angry at you. Just… _hurt_."

"Still hurt?"

She sighs. "Only when I think about it too much. Which I try not to do. I just think about all the ways you've tried to ease my hurt over the years. The way you searched for Sophia." She reaches out her hand for the bottle, and her fingers brush his when he hands it over. "The way you killed that walker child for me, so I didn't have to." She takes a sip. "The way you tried to let me have my peace, instead of telling me what happened to you and the others at the hands of the Saviors." She sets the bottle on her knee. "But I miss those days sometimes. Back in the prison. We  _were_  like a family. And now you and I are the only ones left."

"'Chonne," he reminds her.

"Yes. Of course. I haven't seen her since Zeke's funeral. How is she?"

"Good. Almost like...almost like the old 'Chonne came back finally."

Carol smiles. "Really?"

"She's datin' some supply runner."

" _Really_?"

"Yeah." He huffs. "Guess gettin' laid loosened 'er up. Smiles now."

They've stopped playing the game, but they keep passing the bottle and talking. Carol takes bigger sips than he does, and when she closes one eye and stares down the neck of the empty bottle, he says, "Better get to bed."

She's tipsy when she tires to pull off her boots. She keeps tugging at them without unlacing them, so Daryl kneels down before her and unties them.

"Sexy," she says and giggles.

"Stahp." The laces undone, he yanks off one, and then the other. He stands and gives her a hand to help her up from the couch.

"I need to take off my knives." She has similar trouble unsnapping the sheaths, so he helps. While he unsnaps them one by one, she puts a hand on each of his hips to steady herself and leans her forehead against his shoulder. He has to push her back to slide out the knives in their sheaths and lay them on the coffee table.

She manages to undo her belt buckle, but when she tugs at it, the belt barely budges. "Help!" she cries.

"Jesus," he mutters, and seizes the buckle and yanks hard. The belt slides free of the loops with a snap.

"Naughty," she says and giggles again.

"Ya need to get to bed."

Carol stumbles over to the bed she's made and crawls beneath the top sleeping bag.

Daryl takes off his own boots, props his bow nearby the mantle, and lays his knives on the coffee table before draping his belt over the armchair. Then he crawls in beside her and lies down on his back.

She immediately turns toward him, lays her head on his shoulder, and rests her bent arm on his chest. Every nerve in his body jumps to attention. "Is this okay?" she asks.

"Mhmhm. 'S fine."

"The room is spinning," she says. "One of us should have stayed sober in case walkers come for the horses."

"'M sober. Takes a hell of a lot more ‘n that."

"Guess I'm a lightweight." Carol closes her eyes. "You could take advantage of me if you wanted, you know," she says. She's talking fast, but not really slurring. "But you won't. You're such a Boy Scout. Pookie the Redneck Boy Scout."

"Yer drunk."

"Your powers of observation are astounding." She giggles. "That would make a great children's book, wouldn't it?  _Pookie the Redneck Boy Scout_. I'm going to write it. You can read it to your kids."

"Ain't got no kids."

"You'd make adorable babies." That's the last thing she says. Pretty soon she's jerking in a sleep dance.

He wraps an arm around her to soothe the jerking and tries not to think of the soft, pert feel of her breasts against his side.

It's a long time before he falls asleep.

[*]

Daryl awakens to the sound of grinding. The sun streams through the dusty lace curtains, and a kettle hums above the freshly lit fire.

Carol sits in the arm chair cranking the black iron lever of some handheld contraption. "Good morning, sleepy head. You were sleeping like a baby."

That's because an hour after he finally fell asleep, the horses whinnied and the bells jangled, and he had to go out and kill two walkers and reset the barbwire. Then he couldn't get back to sleep until near morning. Carol slept through it all, in a gentle, drunken snore. "Hell ya doin'?" he asks.

"Grinding coffee beans." She nods to the French press on the coffee table.

"Kingdom's got  _coffee beans_?"

"We grow a few."

"Damn. All we got is that instant shit with a twenty-year shelf life."

"Well, you're in for a treat."

He stands and steps into his boots. "How's yer head?"

"It'll be fine after I have some coffee. Why? Was I pretty drunk last night?"

He huff-laughs as he picks up his crossbow.

"Did I say anything embarrassing?"

"Nah," he lies. "Goin' out to take a piss." He checks on the horses while he's out there, and when he comes back, Carol is pouring coffee out of the French press into two tin camp cups.

He mumbles a thanks when she hands him one, and it  _is_  a treat. Carol pats the couch cushion beside herself, which he supposes means he's supposed to sit, so he does. The steam curls up and around her nose as she lowers her cup after a sip. "My head  _does_  hurt."

"Need to hydrate. Coffee ain't gonna do it."

"I drank a bunch of water when I woke up. Now I need caffeine." She sips again.

Daryl sets his cup down for a moment, draws his roadmap of Virginia out of his backpack, and smooths it out on the coffee table before picking up the cup again. "We're hereabouts." He smacks his finger down on the town of Dumfries. "'N Jamestown," he runs his finger in a diagonal line south and slightly east, "'S here." While he sips, he puts his thumb and forefinger and inch apart and swivels to measure the distance. "Be three or four days." He's a little disappointed when he says it aloud. When they first set out, he was hoping this trip would be longer.  

Carol leans forward to look at the map. "My great grandfather George Aaron Mercer, the son of the man whose name I found in that ledger, is buried in Staunton. I kind of wanted to check out his hometown and see his grave. I guess that's too far out of the way west of Jamestown, though, isn't it?"

Daryl measures a path with his fingers. "Add another four days each way." Which would mean twelve days together, before this journey is done. "But ya don't have to be back 'til mid-May, right?"

"No. But what about you? Do you mind?"

"Nah. 'S fine by me." He studies the map, but he can feel that she's studying his face.

"I'm really glad you agreed to come on this trip with me," she says. "It means a lot."

"Ain't got nothin' better to do."

"Yeah. You do. You have a town to hunt for. A bike to tinker with. A little boy to help raise. But you chose this. I appreciate it."

Daryl folds the map. He doesn't look at her. "Like spendin' time with ya."

He can feel, rather than see, her smile. "You do?"

He murmurs something indecipherable and shoves the map back into his backpack.

"I've missed this," she admits. "You and me. On the road. Like Thelma and Louise."

_Thelma and Louise?_  He must look some kind of something at that remark, because she says, "Bad comparison. Bonnie and Clyde?"

"Who we gonna rob?"

"More like  _what_  are we going to  _loot_. There has to be something good between here and there." She sips quietly for a minute and says, "I really  _am_  glad you're doing this with me, Daryl. I've missed you."

Daryl finishes off his coffee in silence. He rarely visited the Kingdom when she was married, because he thought she'd moved on from him, that she was trying to forget the dark past they'd plowed through together at the quarry and the farm, in the prison and in Alexandria, and on the road in between. He thought she wanted to forget all the bodies they'd buried together.

He started coming more often after Ezekiel was dead, at first just to check up on her, to make sure she was handling the loss. But after a while, he wasn't coming to check up on her anymore. He was coming because he couldn't help coming, because he  _needed_  to see her.

It never occurred to him that she  _needed_  to see him, too.

Carol stands and begins packing up for the road. He follows her in silence outside and unwinds the barbwire perimeter and stores the twine away. After they mount their horses, and she lifts the reins, he mumbles, "Missed ya, too."

Then he clicks to his horse, spurs it with his heel, and rides ahead.


	4. Teaching Daryl to Date

That evening they enter a nameless town. No doubt it had a name once, but they can't make it out on the bullet-riddled, time-blackened entry sign; they can only make out the words beneath the town's name: Population 1,382. The walker population, however, appears to be zero.

"Looks like folks got the hell out of Dodge when it started," Daryl says as his horse walks with a gentle clomping down the crumbling asphalt of a ghostly street.

"Which could mean they left without looting everything," Carol suggests.

"Guess we'll find out."

They break into an elementary school first, one of only three schools in town, and find medicines in the nurse's office. They've found that they can push expirations dates for several years on some things. Daryl tosses a rattling bottle of Advil to Carol and orders, "Take four, 'cause they's only gonna half work."

She does.

They find the middle school next and hit that nurse's office, too, by, which time they've filled half a saddle bag with bottles of pills, gauze, rubbing alcohol, tape, and other medical supplies. They're feeling confident when they locate the high school, but they learn that's where many of the townspeople went. It was probably converted to a shelter at the start, because it now teems with walkers that throw themselves against the inside windows and doors, rattling against their confines, hungry and desperate but unable to get out.

The couple presses on while it's still daylight and run the horses hard to find a decent camp before sunset. A few miles up a windy hill just outside of the town, they come across a "bed and breakfast" on a vineyard. The exterior of the once all-white Spanish colonial structure has grayed over the years, but inside, the lobby is still impressive, with marbled floors, antique furniture, and an ornate chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. It also has only a thin layer of dust.

They leave the horses drinking from pans of water in the lobby while they clear the place. They end killing six walkers and corralling the bodies in a single room at the far end of the place to confine the stench. A family must have hunkered down here, maybe from the start, but within the last year or two, one or more died and turned and killed the rest. The kitchen has been entirely picked over. The tasting room is full of empty wine bottles, and the snacks have been largely cleared out from bookshelves and corner stands, but a few unopened bottles of wine remain. They line up twenty on the tasting counter and also salvage six unopened snack bags of in-the-shell pistachios. There are a few hard sausages in unopened plastic, too, but they can't risk those, as they can see splotches of green in the brown.

Carol looks over the line of wine bottles. "These will fill two whole saddle bags. We can't take them all. Between the liquor and the medical supplies and these, we'll barely have any room left."

"So? Whenever we gotta make room, just drink a bottle."

"I suppose we should drink one tonight, then." She puts her finger on top of the third from the left. "How about a red blend? Or would you prefer a Pinot Noir?"

"All the same to me. Long as I get a buzz."

"Well I doubt that's going to happen on half a bottle. At least not for  _you_."

While Daryl rummages behind the tasting bar for a corkscrew, Carol wipes out some dusty glasses. Then, while he struggles with the cork, Carol lights the fireplace in the brown brick hearth before a black leather couch, plops down, and says, "Oh, wow. This is so comfortable! Come see."

He hands her a glass of wine, and she takes a careful sip before it spills over. "You know," she says as he sits down next to her and a little wine sloshes over the rim of his glass and onto his fingers, "you're only supposed to pour five ounces. Not fill the glass  _all the way_  to the top." She laughs at the annoyed look he gives her and raises her glass. "Salud."

"Cheers." He clinks her glass and takes a big sip of his. "Ain't half bad." He licks the spilled wine off his fingers one by one. He stops when he notices her staring at him.  

"What do you taste?" Carol raises an eyebrow. " _Cherry_?"

Based on the suggestive way she says that, she must be trying to make some kind of sexual joke, something to do with popping a cherry, but he doesn't quite get what she's aiming for. He laughs not because the joke is funny, but because she's so damn cute trying to make it. "Stahp."

"Well, I taste cherry. And hints of black currant."

"Yeah?"

"No," she admits. "I don't even know what black currant is. It just said hints of black currant on the bottle."

"'S a berry. 'S black. Looks kinda like a blueberry. Ain't native to the U.S.. 'S bullshit. Ain't no hints of black currant 'n here. I taste tobacco."

"Well, that makes sense. It is Virginia." After she sips, she says, "We should probably have more than wine for dinner."

"Want me to hunt?"

"No, it's dark already." The tasting room is lit only by the fireplace, which paints Carol's face in soft shadows. "You're tired. Let's just eat some of those pistachios we found. And a little of the deer jerky you brought."

They're content with their light meal. Daryl goes to get the bottle and stands to refill Carol's now empty glass, again to the brim. Carol smiles and puts her stocking feet up on the coffee table, beside a decorative, golden bird cage full of wine corks.

Daryl doesn't bother to refill his glass. He just takes a swig straight from the bottle instead. Still holding the bottle, he plops down next to her and kicks the bird cage off the table with his foot. It clatters to the ground and rolls before the hearth. He settles his feet next to hers. His socks are filthy, he realizes, and there's a hole in the left one. Maybe he should check the dressers in the rooms in the morning for a clean pair.

"You ever wonder," she asks after she sips, "if we had just roamed like this after the farm, just gone from town to town…never settled at the prison…if we would have lost fewer people?"

"Dunno."

"I suppose we might have starved to death by now, if we hadn't been able to build and garden and store things up for the winter. And back then, there were more bad gangs on the road. We might have been killed by now. And I never would have met Henry."

Henry?  _That's_  the first person who comes to her mind? "Or yer husband."

Carol swirls her glass. Dark red ripples break out over the surface of the wine. "I might not have cared about that, if…" She stops and takes a sip.

"If what?"

"If you and I hadn't grown apart like we did," she murmurs. His brain is whirring to process the meaning of those words when she continues, "Those good days at the prison, they were some of the happiest days of my life. But if we hadn't settled there, I'd never have killed Karen and David. Rick never would have banished me. Maybe you wouldn't have been so broken up by losing Beth. Maybe Glenn and Maggie would be raising Hershel, instead of the Hilltop raising him. Maybe, if we'd just gone on wandering after the farm, and  _none_  of that had happened, maybe you and I would have…"

_Would have what?_

"Then again," she continues, not completing her thought, "I wouldn't have met Jerry or Nabila or so many other really good people."

_Would have what?_

"You wouldn't have become such good friends with Aaron and Tara. Michonne and Rick never would have gotten together, and there would be no RJ at all. I guess we can't second guess ourselves, can we?"

_Would have what?_

"This is really good." She takes another sip. "Is my tongue black?" She stretches is out and flattens it downward.

He has a sudden, animalistic urge to lean over and suck her tongue, an urge so powerful it rattles him. He looks away. "Purple."

She doesn't say anything else while she quietly finishes her wine, and neither does he. But when she puts her empty glass on the table, she leans her head on his shoulder. "The fire's so pretty. I guess I get my romantic B&B after all. Though it's more like a castle."

"Mhmhm." He finishes the last of the wine in the bottle, using his left hand to drink since she's leaning on his right shoulder. He doesn't want to lean forward to set the empty bottle on the coffee table and knock her head off his shoulder in the process, so he just tosses it over the arm of the couch. It cracks on the hardwood floor.

Carol closes her eyes. "You know, this is good practice for you."

"Hmh?"

"Taking a girl to a winery. It's good practice if you ever  _do_  go on a date."

"Ain't goin' on any dates."

"You wouldn't be so bad at it. You poured the wine and made supper and everything."

"Pfft."  _Made supper_. He didn't even  _kill_  supper.

He thinks she's fallen asleep when she asks, "Am I making your arm fall asleep?"

"'S fine."

"You can put it around me if that's more comfortable."

So he does, and she takes her feet from the coffee table, half turns, and curls up on the couch against his side. She falls asleep just like that.

Daryl listens to the sound of her gentle breathing, the crackling of the fire, and the horses huffing softly in the lobby beyond the tasting room. He sits there with his arm around her until the fire fades to embers, thinking –  _Would have what?_

When the room has grown nearly black, with only a red-orange glow coming from the bottom of the last of the wood, he carefully eases himself out from under her, lowers her head onto a throw pillow, and drapes an unzipped sleeping bag over her. Then he makes his own bed on the floor, not far away.

[*]

Daryl's shoulder touches Carol's in the narrow bed. He stares up at the exposed threads inside the dusty white canopy.

"We are lying in the bed Thomas Jefferson slept in," she says.

"Nah. Someone probably replaced it since then."

"We're at least lying in the  _room_  he slept in."

They made good time today and travelled far. The horses are exhausted and well secured in closed stalls inside the locked stone stable. After clearing Monticello, they ended up throwing themselves down, boots and gear still on, for a break on this dusty bed.

"I can't believe no one's settled here," she says. "It already has stables for horses. Old slave quarters that could house dozens of people. A pond for fishing. All that land that once had fields and gardens."

"There’s been herds crossin’ here," he replies. "Can tell by the beat down grass, picked over farm animals. Kept people away."

The bed shifts slightly as Carol rolls off it. "I'm going to go scavenge that farm to table café for spices." They passed it before they got to the house. They banged on the café's windows long enough to know there were no walkers inside, before they moved on to explore the rest of the grounds. The café appeared untouched, and it would have been a great place to loot if only they'd found it years ago, before almost everything spoiled. "What's for dinner?"

Daryl gets up and grabs the crossbow he's leaned against the antique dresser. "Dunno yet. See what I can rustle up."

"We're definitely eating in Thomas Jefferson's dining room," she tells him.

"Are we pissin' 'n his chamber pot, too?"

"Might as well."

[*]

Light flickers from the candelabra that rests on the yellowed tablecloth. The candles are deformed, having half-melted and then solidified again, but they still burn. The couple drinks red wine from crystal glasses drawn from the hutch and eat the fish Daryl speared with a sharpened tree branch after wading into the pond. Carol seasoned the fish with the salvageable seasonings she snagged from the café and cooked them over a fire in Thomas Jefferson's kitchen.

"Find anythin' 'sides the salt n' pepper 'n…" Daryl gestures to his fish with his fork. "Green stuff?"

"It's dried basil." She cuts a piece of her fish. "I found some other unopened spices. They've probably lost half their savor, but I'll just use twice as much." She takes a bite, and after swallowing, adds, "And I found an unopened canister of dried oats. Steel cut. I guess we'll find out in the morning if it's still edible."

"When'd it expire?"

"Only five years ago."

"Pfft."

"Hey, those dates are just suggestions." She takes a sip of her wine and then asks, "How many pairs of pants did you bring?"

He had to change after fishing, and his pants hang drying by the fireplace in the parlor. "Two."

"We need to find you another one."

"Hell for? Got one to wear while the other dries." He shoves a bite into his mouth.

"The pair you're wearing now is torn out at the left knee."

"'S fine. These're m' house pants."

She snorts. Carol eats quietly for a while, looking around at the various paintings illuminated by the flickering candlelight.

Daryl, his meal now done, belches and pounds his chest.

"Excuse you."

"Mhmm." He takes a swig of his wine.

"I'm training you well for the whole dating scene, when you finally decide to go on a date. I mean, look what we have here." She waves her hand across the table. "Candlelight. Fresh caught fish. The good china  _and_  the good silver." She lifts her glass and smiles. "Not to mention the wine. If we could just find a phonograph and some records, I could teach you to dance."

"Pfft," he mocks, but he peers over his wine glass and wonders if she thinks that's what they  _would have_  done, if things hadn't fallen apart, if their little group had stayed together, if she'd never seen the Kingdom. Does she think they would have… _dated_?

It's a ridiculous thought. She knows he's not that man, the one who courts a woman, who brings fruits to her doorstep while quoting poetry. He'll never  _be_  that man. And now that she's  _had_  that man, she can't still want him that way, if she ever did, if that was even what she was saying last night.

Before, she only had Ed to compare Daryl to. Now, she's had a king. Ezekiel may not have been good in bed, but he was good at all the rest of it. And maybe that's why Carol hasn't mentioned Daryl's kiss. Maybe that's why she snuggles up to him sometimes but never does anything more. Because she's got the good sense to know that he'd be a shit lover and an even shittier husband.

And maybe that's for the best. Because they've got something here. He doesn't know what it is they've got, but it's  _something_ , and he's not going to piss it all away trying to grab something else, something he's never had, something a man like him probably can't  _ever_  have.

Daryl pushes his empty plate forward.

"Shall we adjourn to the drawing room?" Carol asks with a smirk.

[*]

Daryl plops down on the couch in the parlor, holding the wine bottle by its neck. Since Carol said she was done after her second glass, he swigs straight from the bottle while she rustles around in her pack and pulls out some sewing supplies. Between the fireplace and the candles, the room is fairly well lit.

"Take off your pants," she orders.

"What?"

"I need to patch that knee."

"Ain't got no drawers on under."

"You only brought  _one_  pair?" She glances at the fireplace, like she expects to see them drying there, but there are only his Wranglers. "You go commando?"

"In the spring 'n summer, sure. 'M balls sweat."

"That was not a level of detail I needed." She shoves her sewing supplies back in her pack. "I'll fix it in the morning before we head out, when your other pair is dry."

[*]

An oil lamp glows gently on the wooden stand. The hydrogen peroxide he snagged from the school nurse's office foams as Daryl scrubs his teeth. He spies Carol in the mirror above the washbasin as she walks into this small bedroom off the parlor.

"When did you develop such good dental hygiene?" she asks.

He spits in the 18th century wash basin. "When Sidiqq had to pull that second tooth."

"I didn't even notice."

"'Cause the gaps are 'n the back." He pours a little water from his canteen over his toothbrush and brushes some more.

"I had one pulled myself last year," she admits. In the mirror, he can see her eyebrow wiggling suggestively. "Show me yours, and I'll show you mine."

"Staaahp." But he turns, opens his mouth wide, and points to the back, first one side, then the other. It only took him a day to get used to eating after the first one was pulled, but it took three weeks to get used to the missing second.

"Hey, we're twinsies." She shows him where she lost a tooth in the same spot as one of his.

He rinses his toothbrush with a little more water, knocks it against the washbasin to get the excess off, and then slips it in the pack he's left on the bed.

"Hydrogen peroxide's a good oral astringent," Carol says, "but it's not exactly minty fresh."

"Got somethin' for that." He draws out the half-empty bottle of Peppermint Schnapps he snagged from the house in Dumfries.

"I thought you said that wasn't drinkable."

"Ain't. No Schnapps is drinkable. But 's got it's uses." He takes a swig, swishes it around in his mouth, and spits in the basin. Then he turns again and breathes right in her face. "See? Minty fresh."

She steps back. "Minty anyway." But then she looks at the bottle like maybe she wants to try, so he hands it over to her before going back to the parlor, where he finds she's laid their sleeping bags before the fireplace, unzipped again, as one bed.

"I thought the beds in this house were too dusty," she explains when she returns from her own washing up and finds him sitting in an arm chair and fiddling with his bow. "Do you mind?"

"Nah. Can sleep anywhere."

When they do go to sleep, she rolls to him again like she did the night before last and lays her head on his chest. She smells of peppermint and lime soap and something else…something that's just Carol.

He doesn't want to tell her it's hard for him to fall asleep like this, with another person pressed against him, with  _her_  pressed against him. After all, it seems like it makes it easier for her to fall asleep. She's out in sixty seconds.

He waits ten minutes before he eases out from under her and rolls to face the dying fire. She turns also, in her sleep, on her side away from him. Almost instantly, he misses the warmth. So he slides back ever so slightly, until their backs are barely touching, and like that – with no real pressure, but just enough reassuring warmth – he drifts off to sleep.


	5. Fleeing the Graveyard

 

"Wonder if ol' Tom fucked Sally on this kitchen table?" Daryl muses as he pours coffee from the French press into the tea cups Carol's dusted out.

"I see you've been reading the historical signs."

He sets the French press down and picks up his coffee. "Wonder if there's communities somewhere got slavery again."

"Probably. That's about how Negan ran things, wouldn't you say?" As she speaks, she's busy studying the canister of oats she just opened. She sniffs. Then she touches a few dry flakes. "I guess we'll see how this goes."

When she cooks the oatmeal, the liquid separates. She sighs. "I don't think this is going to be safe."

"Can try'n catch some more fish."

"We should get moving. Let's just have some more of those pistachios. They were good. And I've got four dried apricots left. We can have one each."

After breakfast, they pack up. Carol takes two pairs of sweatpants and a sweatshirt from the gift shop.  Daryl claims two small souvenirs for Judith and Hershel – not from the shop, but from the house itself - a broach for the girl, and a coin for the boy.

[*]

Carol leans halfway off her horse and thrusts her knife into a walker's head. Daryl lets go of the reins to shoot another with his crossbow, loses his balance, and tumbles off the horse, smacking the asphalt hard. Grunting with pain, he rolls over and onto one knee to reload.

Carol is off her horse and on her feet. She runs for the walker that's coming toward him and sinks her knife into the side of its head. He's reloaded by the time she yanks the blade out. The walker crumples into a gruesome clump, and Daryl shoots the next one. He stands and reloads. Between them, they take down six more, and then stand back to back, circling in search of more.

"I think that's all," Carol says. She wipes her blade clean, sheaths it, and whistles to her horse, which trots up to her. Carol takes it by the reins while Daryl recovers his.

"Hope this visitor's center is worth it," he mutters. Carol wants a map of the town of Staunton, so she can find the church where her great grandfather was buried. She  _claims_  the town's name is pronounced Stan-ton, but he's beginning to think she's just making up these pronunciations.

Leading their horses, they stroll down the historic Main Street and past an abandoned car where a walker thrashes weakly inside. It barely has the energy to throw itself against the window and open its jaws in desperate hunger.

They find the visitor's center. A single walker stumbled about inside, and Daryl fells it lazily with an arrow. The creature has managed to knock over two racks of brochures during its time trapped here. There's a U-shaped counter to the right, and behind it a chair, more racks with brochures, and a glass refrigerator case full of bottled water.

Daryl vaults over the counter, opens the refrigerator, and tucks eight bottles in his backpack for the road. They won't bother to haul the rest. They both have wells at home, and they might need the saddle pack space for better things.

Daryl grabs a detailed map of Staunton and spreads it on the counter to look for the church.

"Hey," Carol says, and he looks up to find her reading a brochure. "This town has a re-creation of the Blackfriar's Playhouse in London."

"The what?"

"It was one of the theaters where Shakespeare's plays were performed. They've built a replica here."

"In  _this_  town?" It just seems like a sleepy Virginia town, not a place for snooty theater goers.

"Ezekiel would have  _loved_  to see it. Let's go."

The sudden reminder that Carol was married, that some other man got to know her better – or at least  _differently_  – than he has – irks him more than it should. "I ain't 'Zekiel."

He must growl it – even though he doesn't mean to – because her face falls. "All right," she says cautiously. "We don't have to go."

In a softened tone, he asks, "Do  _you_  wanna see it?"

She shrugs. "I don't need to. It just sounds interesting. I've never been to London. Never been anywhere, really."

"Guess we could…swing by. Hell, might be somethin' to loot."

[*]

Carol stands on the center of the stage of the Blackfriar's Playhouse and projects to an audience of one, "To be or not to be, that is the question."

From where he sits slouched in a seat in the front row, Daryl claps.

Carol comes down from the stage and sets a prop crown on his head.

"Stahp," he complains, and swipes it off.

"You'd make a good King Richard II," she tells him.

"The evil, gay one?"

"He's wasn't  _evil_. Just  _conflicted_. But, fine, Henry V."

"A'ight. He kicked ass. And got plenty of ass, too."

She leans back against the stage. "I didn't know you knew your Shakespeare so well."

"Used to watch VHS movies in detention. The teacher supervisin' put 'em on. Always Shakespeare. Think he was tryin' to torture us."

"What did you get detention for?" she asks.

“Fights mostly."

"What were the fights about?"

He shrugs. "Different shit. One day a guy called me a white trash piece of shit. So I had to hit 'em. Another day a guy got up in my face for lookin' his girl all over."

" _Were_  you looking his girl all over?"

"Nah. Just 'er tits."

Carol snorts. "Did you finish high school?"

"Yeah, believe it or not. Did the vocational track. Slept through my regular classes, barely passed 'em, but got to leave school early m' last two years to work in a shop. Never did become a mechanic, though."

"Well, I dropped out."

"To support yer mom?" he asks. "'Cause she got sick?"

She seems surprised he remembers that detail. "And myself. She had a stroke. And then she had dementia from the stroke. She couldn't work anymore. She could barely take care of herself. I couldn't afford someone to watch her, so I'd just…try to make the house safe. Leave her meals in the fridge." Carol hugs herself. "One day, when I was nineteen, I came home, and she thought I was a robber. She hit me in the face with a lamp. I had to get twelve stitches."

"Jesus," Daryl mutters.

Carol looks at him sympathetically and a little cautiously. "At least she didn't do it on purpose."

"'Least I could just walk away when I's old enough. Ya must of felt…dunno."

"Obligated," she says. "I did. I felt obligated to stay and take care of her, and I  _was_  obligated. She'd always taken such good care of me. I loved her. And having to see her like that…" Carol shakes her head. She blinks back tears. "Funny, everything I've gone through in my life, and everything since the Turn, and thinking of that…how can  _that_  still hurt?"

The chair squeaks as Daryl stands. It flaps back up into place. "Hey," he murmurs. "C'mere." When she takes two steps toward him, he draws her in for a hug.

She rests her head against his shoulder for a moment before she pulls away, swipes at her eyes, and says, "Let's go check out that concession stand."

[*]

The concession stand yields only decayed candy, flat soda, and molded chips, but Carol's determined. She busts open a supply cabinet beneath the counter, while Daryl stands silently reading the Shakespearian sonnet etched in fading black cursive on the opposite wall:

 _Let me not to the marriage of true minds_  
_Admit impediments. Love is not love_  
 _Which alters when it alteration finds,_  
 _Or bends with the remover to remove._

For some reason, when he reads those words, he can't help but think of Carol being banished from the prison, and then coming back to save them all from Terminus, even though they didn't deserve her loyalty. He can't help but think of her leaving Alexandria and marrying Ezekiel, and how much that hurt, and yet how ready he still is to follow her three hundred miles and back.

_O no! it is an ever-fixed mark –  
That looks on tempests and is never shaken -  _

Carol shouts his name – squeals it almost - and Daryl turns suddenly from the sonnet. She stands up from her crouched position and thrusts a large plastic bag victoriously into the air above her head. It's filled with the mother of all apocalyptic candies.

"Holy shit," Daryl mutters. "That what I think it is?"

"Giant pixie sticks!" she exclaims. "Pure sugar. And still sealed. There's an 80% chance it's just fine."

They leave the theater and ride toward the church where Carol's ancestor is supposedly buried. They ride side by side, each throwing back a huge plastic straw full of delicious dust, with twenty-six more sticks snuggled in one of the saddle bags.

"Trade flavors?" Carol asks, and he can't possibly say no, even though she's swallowed more than half of hers, and he's only had a third.

[*]

Black rust cakes the bronze bell of the old Episcopalian church, freezing it in a half-rung position. The once white paint of the rain-battered steeple has peeled away to expose a gray-brown underbelly. The wood threatens to split, and yet the tower holds. A bird has made its nest above the bell and chirps loudly to its offspring. Daryl looks away when Carol calls to him: "The cemetery is here!"

He joins her at the left side of the church and sees the old gray stones and dirt-streaked crosses rising above the rocky dirt, which sprouts only the occasional dark green weed here or there. They walk among the dead, a foot apart, trying to make out the names etched on the memorials. Here and there Carol crouches and rubs away the grime of years to try to read what lies beneath. Among these old-timey names, they find an Abraham, a Theodore, a Margaret, a Noah,  _and_  a Richard.

Daryl watches Carol out of the corner of his eye as she swallows at the roll call of the dead. "I'll go to the back," she says softly. "You keep looking toward the front. We'll make this quick."

They split ways and Daryl reads the names until his feet still before a flat memorial stone. Peeking out mockingly from the dirt are the letters that spell Sophia. His heart catches, and he looks up anxiously to see how far away Carol is.

She stands before a stone angel. "Did you find it?" she calls.

"Nah!" He walks hurriedly away, his eyes on the stones. At last, he spies it.  _Mercer_. Daryl unsheathes his knife, crouches, and then, holding the blade flat, uses it to scrape off a coat of dried mud to reveal the names George Aaron. "Found it!" he shouts, and Carol hastens over.

He finishes cleaning off the stone for her, until they can make it out fully:

 _Fr. George Aaron Mercer_  
_beloved husband and father_  
 _friend of God_  
 _1892 - 1925_

"Father? Yer great granddaddy was a priest?" Daryl asks.

She laughs. "I guess so. An Episcopal one, I suppose. Since he had a wife and kids. And he's buried here." Her eyes rake over the stone. "He sure died young. 33."

"Same as Jesus." Her brow knits in confusion, and he realizes she thinks he's talking about Hilltop's Jesus. "Christ."

"Yeah." She runs her fingertips over the lettering on the upright, misshapen stone, "I can't take this with me, like I did that page from the book, but thank you. Thank you for indulging me."

Daryl swings his backpack off his shoulder. " _Can_  bring it with ya."

"What? No. We're not defacing a grave and hauling a heavy tombstone."

He digs in his pack to draw out two sheets of legal-size paper. He often carries paper for making maps when he discovers good hunting grounds or walker-infested areas to be avoided.

She takes the paper when he hands it to her, but looks puzzled.

"Hold on." He unzips the front pouch and draws out a pack of colored chalk he picked up from the elementary school to bring back to the Hilltop's one-room school house. He opens it and slides out a dark purple stick. "'Member doin' this as a kid?"

"A grave rubbing?" she asks, and the way her eyes light up with excitement make his heart beat a little faster.

They kneel together before the grave. Daryl holds the two sheets together on the upright stone while Carol leans forward to start rubbing with the colored chalk. It's too light at first, so she rubs harder, and he has to force himself not to look down at her breasts as they bounce lightly with her vigorous effort, but his eyes do flit down once. Or twice.

A gust of wind rustles the corners of the paper, and Carol has to pause in her efforts until the flapping stills. Above, the clouds are graying. The horses whinny impatiently where they were left tied to a parking meter in front of the church, and Daryl glances back to make sure they aren't warning of approaching walkers on the street, but they only seem bothered by the sudden drop in temperature and the unexpected gale. "Storm's comin'. Better make this quick."

Carol starts rubbing again. Daryl has to move his hands around to accommodate her, and it gets to be a bit like a game of Twister, with her leaning around his arms to keep rubbing. She breathes a little harder as she throws her elbows into the work. His eyes flit to her chest again, for just a moment, and it feels wrong, so very wrong, to be thinking about sex in a graveyard.

He's relieved when she's done and falls back on her bottom in the dirt, rests her elbows on her drawn up knees, and surveys her handiwork. "Shoot," she mutters. "I missed the last line."

She's getting ready to kneel again when there's a growl from her right. Daryl checked the street, but he didn't check the back of the church.

Carol scurries to her feet, drops the chalk, and draws her knife. Daryl holds the paper in place with one hand while seizing the rolling chalk in the other.

"Forget it!" she shouts as she strides forward several feet and sinks her knife into the head of an approaching walker, but Daryl continues the rubbing.

Carol yanks her knife out, runs forward, and stabs a second walker. Now finished with the rubbing, Daryl drops the paper and chalk, stands, swivels his bow off his shoulder, and shoots a third walker stumbling from behind the church and toward the graveyard. As he reloads, Carol runs forward with her bloody knife, but she stops suddenly.

She turns and runs back, flying past him while shouting, "Let's go! Let's go!"

Daryl looks up from his freshly loaded bow to see a small herd of walkers streaming from around the edge of the church toward them. They must have been bumbling around  _inside_  the church and spilled out an open back doorway in response to the sound of the horses and human voices.

An arrow whizzes from Daryl's crossbow and thunks into the closet walker, which slumps to the ground as Daryl swings his backpack on. The two sheets of paper are caught up in the wind and drift toward the herd. He chases after the floating papers, dodging first one walker and then another. He seizes one sheet in mid-air and scoops the other from the ground. His hands full with the papers, he has to kick back a walker before running for the horses.

Carol has untied them both and it mounting hers. Daryl shoves the papers in his mouth and holds them between his pressed lips to free his hands to vault himself up on the animal.

Carol draws her side arm and shoots the walker that is now reaching for the tail of Daryl's horse, because it’s too close for her longbow, and too far for her knife. She yells a hi-ya to her horse and spurs it down the street. With a rough kick to the animal's side, Daryl thunders after her.


	6. More Than Friends

When they've put a mile between themselves and the herd, they slow the horses to a walk. Daryl still holds the papers in his mouth. He yanks back on the reins to stop his horse and then take the papers out. "Sorry I slobbered all over your grave rubbin'."

"You didn't have to risk your  _life_  for it, you know."

"Pfft. Didn't. Had plenty of time." He slides off his horse and brings the rubbing over to Carol, who has stilled her stallion.

"Thank you," she says as he folds the paper and slides it into the saddle bag with the pixie sticks and medicines.

Thunder rumbles across the darkening sky.

"Need to put some more distance 'tween us 'n that herd," Daryl says, "'n find shelter."

They veer off down a windy country road, because the herd has lost their scent by now and will likely just keep going straight. Unfortunately, there isn't much in the way of houses, but at last Carol spies a farm and points to it just as thunder booms across the sky.

The clouds open to pour down a torrent of rain. Carol flips up the hood on her light jacket, but Daryl doesn't have one, and together they ride toward the farm house, through tall wet grasses.

When they're two yards from the house, a mighty crack echoes across the field, and an immense tree plummets onto the farmhouse, bringing the roof down with it. "Shit!" Daryl mutters as the horses rear back.

"There's a barn!" Carol's yells. Daryl can barely hear her over the howling wind and wooshing rain. They ride quickly for the shelter, and when they dismount inside, and slide shut and secure the flapping door with the iron hook lock, they're soaked to the bone.

A stream of water pours down from one section of the barn's worn roof, pitter-pattering into a muddy puddle on the dirt ground, but otherwise the place seems secure.

They stable the horses in stalls as far away from the leak as possible, unburden the animals from their saddle bags, wipe them down, and leave them pans of water.

"Gonna clear the loft," Daryl says.

"I'm going to change out of these wet clothes. No peeking."

"Pffft."

But he does peek, over the rail of the loft, when he sees there's nothing up there but some aged, brittle, and crumbling straw. When he glances over the rail, he catches a flash of her bare breasts just as she lowers over them a dark green sweatshirt with a picture of Monticello on it. He turns at the sound of scurrying and shoots a squirrel. Two more disappear beneath the planks.

"Walker?" Carol calls up.

"Nah. Dinner."

When Daryl comes back down, she hands him a pair of sweat pants and a sweatshirt from the giftshop at Monticello. "I snagged some for you, too, so you don't have to sleep in your work pants anymore."

"Like sleepin' 'n my work pants. What if I got to get up 'n fight?"

"Then you can fight in comfy pants."

He doesn't argue. He's cold and wet and the temperature must have dropped another ten degrees with this rain. It feels more like late winter than early spring. Some soft, dry sweats sound pretty good right about now.

He turns his back to her while he changes and has a sense that she's watching him, but when he turns around again, she's busying herself with the horses.

"How long do you think this storm will last?"

"While," he mutters. "'N by then the sun'll've set. Might as well camp here. Caught a squirrel for super." He nods to the animal he's left on the ground by his abandoned pack.

"Do you think there's enough ventilation to light a fire in here?"

All these walkers in the world, and yet most of them who have made it this long will likely die from smoke pollution.

"'S a damn hole in the roof."

"True enough. But we best not burn it long."

Daryl's not sure how Carol seasons the squirrel, but it tastes better than the bland stuff he ate over his campfire in the woods for years. She remembered to snag a corkscrew from the winery, but they have no crystal glasses, so tonight they just pass a bottle of wine back and forth beside the fire, while the barn creaks from the wind, rain batters the wood, thunder rumbles, the horses huff, and brief flashes of lightening illuminate the barn through an upper window like a strobe.

"I think I'm getting a buzz," Carol observes.

"Well, we ain't ate much today."

Carol doesn't say anything more as they drink, but that doesn't bother him. When the bottle is drained, he dampens the fire. Carol lights an oil lamp and sets it near her. She sits Indian style on her unzipped sleeping bag – his is still rolled - and by the low light of the wick smooths out the rubbing and tapes the two papers together in back with medical tape. She flips them over and studies the final product.

Daryl's sits on his bedroll sharpening one of his knives. The light of the oil lamp paints shadows on the soft skin of Carol's face, and for a brief moment, it illuminates the tears glistening inside the light blue pools of her eyes. "Hell's the matter?" he asks with alarm.

"I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm so emotional looking at this."

He doesn't know either. It's just the rubbing from the grave of some long dead ancestor, someone she never met in her life, in a state she never even went to before the Turn. "Ya didn't even know 'em."

"I'm not crying because of  _him_." She swipes at the tears in the corner of her eyes.

"'N why?" Daryl runs his sharpening stone up his blade, and then back.

"I think I'm crying because you're so good to me."

Daryl's hand freezes for a moment on the sharpening stone.

She smiles gently and folds up the rubbing where it's taped. "You're such an idiot. You ran  _toward_  the herd to get this for me. Because you thought it was important to me."

He tosses the stone back into his open backpack. "It ain't?"

"Certainly not as important as you."

Daryl slowly sheaths his knife and lays it aside on the ground. His chest tightens, and he tries to think what to say to that, how to interpret it, how to feel about it. It's not the first time she's said something like that. Even as far back as the farm, she told him,  _I can't lose you, too_. But there's something different in the way she says it tonight.

She uncrosses her legs, puts her feet flat on her stretched out sleeping bag, and hugs her knees while looking at him over the ashes of the dead fire. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Mhmhm."

"Why did you kiss me the other night?"

Daryl swallows. How is he supposed to answer that question? He did it because he wanted to. Because he  _needed_  to. "Dunno."

"You don't know  _why_  you kissed me?"

"Dunno," he repeats in a mutter, and suddenly busies himself with a loose thread at the hem of the sweatpants she picked up for him. He twirls the black thread around his finger.

Carol sighs. "I'm just…confused."

_She's_  confused?

"Because…Daryl…you haven't made a move since."

The thread snaps off. She  _wanted_  him to make another move? "Did…" he looks up hesitantly. "Did ya like it?"

"I kissed you back, didn't I?"

He chews on his bottom lip. "Yeah. Just didn't know if…if ya meant to."

She lets out an exasperated chuckle. "Well, I did. Did  _you_  mean to?"

The broken-off thread around his finger has cut off the circulation. Concentrating fiercely on the task, he unravels the thread. "Yeah."

"Why?"

"Just…needed to, I guess. Felt like…I needed to."

"I think we're both afraid of losing this," she says quietly. "Whatever this is that we have."

Muscles he didn't even know were tense unwind like the thread he's just spun off his finger. He's relieved because she put this feeling into words. He catches her eyes. "Yeah."

"I know you care for me, Daryl. I know by the way you treat me. I just don't know…I don't know what you want this to be. What do you want here?"

"Want you," he blurts, and then his voice and eyes fall. "Just want you."

" _How_? How do you want me?"

"Anyway y'll let me have ya," he admits.

"Well, I want to be more than friends."

Daryl's thumbnail flies into his mouth and he chews nervously. When people say they're  _more than friends_ , that usually means they're fucking. Except…Daryl's never fucked a friend. He's only ever fucked strangers. He never even  _had_  a friend until Carol, not really. She was his very first friend in the world. And he thinks maybe she'll be his last, if he doesn't screw  _more-than-friends_  up. "A'ight."

"All right?" She laughs. "Well, it's all right with me, too."

He lowers his hand from his mouth and picks at the hangnail. "This mean we're havin' sex?"

He can feel her reaction more than he can see it. The breath seems to go out of her, and he wishes he hadn't said it, thinks maybe he's  _already_  screwed  _more-than-friends_  up.

"Sure," she replies quietly.

"Ain't got to!" He already knows she doesn't think much of her past sexual experiences. The last thing he wants is for her to do it out of obligation, because she thinks she has to, in order to be  _more than friends_. "Ain't got to."

"I know I don't have to. But I want to.  _Eventually_. Just maybe…not tonight. We've only kissed the  _once_."

"Yeah." He digs at the hangnail until it drips a small drop of blood as red as his face must be. "'Course." What a stupid thing to suggest. This is  _Carol_. Not some woman he picked up in a bar. They haven't even gone on a date yet. Unless that's what this whole trip has been. "We…are we datin'?" He peers up enough to see her smile.

"We're having a good time," she says. "I think. Aren't we?"

He smiles at her smile. "Yeah."

"Would you like to kiss me again?"

"Mhmm," he says, but he's frozen in place.

"You should probably come over here first. It would be a long stretch otherwise."

Daryl stands up from his rolled sleeping bag and walks around the dead fire. She moves the oil lamp to the other side of herself so he can sit down on her unzipped sleeping bag next to her, which he does. She scoots a little closer to him. They turn their faces to one another. Heart thudding, he leans in, but she leans in at the same time. Their noses and foreheads bump, hard.

"Ow!" Carol draws back.

"Sorry," he mutters.

She chuckles and turns toward him again. His hair is a bit shorter now than it was a few years ago, but there's still enough in front that she can brush back a strand from his forehead, which she does before running her fingertips down his cheek. Her gentle caress leaves a trail of heat in its wake. This time, he lets her lean in while he stays still.

She presses her lips shyly against the corner of his mouth, and then all the way across his closed lips. He opens his mouth slightly, puts a hand at the back of her head and presses her in.

The kiss begins slowly and gently, but soon deepens. He's startled by how much it excites him. He's usually avoided kissing women. It's too intimate. He's certainly never been turned on by a simple kiss before. But after a little while tasting Carol, he's already halfway to a full-on hard-on.

Is this what the kids in high school meant when they said they were  _making out_? He never understood why anyone would want to do that. It seemed like a waste of time. It wasn't fucking, after all. But he's starting to understand it now.

Carol hums against his lips. He's pretty sure that means she likes the kissing. She puts a hand on the back of his head, which lifts her arm so that his hand can slide down her back and around to the front. He lays his palm flat against the side of her breast. She leans into his hand, or at least he thinks she does, and now he's all the way to a full-on hard on. Just from  _kissing_. He hopes she doesn't stop kissing him and look down.

He's about to shift his hand, to attempt sliding his thumb over her nipple through her soft sweatshirt, to see if she's as hard as he is, when a portion of the roof gives way.

Decayed wood splinters off while rainwater sloshes down in a waterfall and turns the puddle into a growing pond. Mist from the pouring waterfall floats outward and coats their skin and clothes in a thin layer.

"Shit!" Daryl scrambles to his feet and snatches up the oil lamp.

Carol stands and picks up her sleeping bag to draw it away from the rippling edges of the growing pool. She grabs her pack and hastens to the other side of the dying fire, where Daryl picks up his pack and kicks his rolled sleeping bag down the dirt floor of the barn almost to the door.

Standing by the horses now, they look up as the waterfall finishes its sloshing decent into the sea of mud and broken roofing. Now it’s just rain pattering in through the large, misshapen hole in the roof.

Carol calms the startled horses with gentle petting and clicking.

"This ain't good," Daryl says, although at least his painful hard-on has faded away.

"Astute observation, Sherlock."

"Go out there, though, we'd just be in it."

"It would be hard to see walkers in the dark, and even harder in the rain," she agrees as she steps away from Freckles, whom she's just stroked into settling.

"Ain't likely to find shelter for miles. Farm truck maybe. Probably pick-ups out there."

"We have to think about the horses. Hopefully the rest of the roof will hold." She looks up. "This part seems sturdier. No drips even."

Daryl raises the oil lamp to illuminate the pool on the ground.

"I don't think that will grow  _all the way_  over here tonight," Carol says.

"A'ight. But one of us better stand watch. If more collapses down there," he points toward the widened hole in the roof, "we gotta leave 'fore it all collapses 'n falls on us."

"Sounds like a plan."

"Ya sleep first," he insists.

"Why me?" Carol asks.

"'Cause yer buzzed, and I ain't."

She chuckles. "What makes you think I'm buzzed?"

"One, ya said ya were. 'N two," The left side of his mouth twitches. "Ya wanted to make out with me."

"Well, I won't drink any wine tomorrow night so you can see I don't have to be buzzed to do that."

They're making out tomorrow night, too? Of course they are. That's what  _more-than-friends_  do, he reckons. They make out every night they're together. Well, maybe not  _every_  night. But a  _lot_  of nights, probably, he thinks. Glenn and Maggie sure made out a lot of nights. He could hear them going at it in their cell. Once he had to shout for them to keep it down.

Carol stands on her tiptoes and kisses his forehead. "Thanks for keeping watch," she says before zipping up her sleeping bag to settle inside it for the night.

Daryl puts his rolled up sleeping bag not far from her and sits on the lump with his elbows on his knees and the oil lamp to his left. He watches the falling rain collecting in the deepening, widening pool. The pool grows slowly, forming mud at its outer edges like a rim, and when he's content it's not going to widen its way out to them, he takes a knife from his pack and begins to clean it.

He doesn't sharpen it, because Carol has already faded into sleep, the pattering rain like a lullaby. But the sound of a blade against stone is less soothing, and it will likely wake her.

He glances at her curled in the sleeping bag, her chest gently rising and falling, and hopes he doesn't fuck this up, this  _more-than-friends_  thing.

His horse snorts, almost like its laughing at him, and Daryl mutters, "Shut the hell up, Freckles."


	7. Making Out at the Ski Lodge

Daryl nudges Carol awake around four in the morning, when the rain has softened to a gentle patter. He sleeps until the sun streams through the hole in the roof. Carol has lit a fire and is making coffee.  

He rises and checks if the wet clothes they draped over one of the stall doors are dry. His eyes fall on Carol's black bra hanging over her pants. A lacy trim lines the cups, and his first thought is – who the hell is she wearing  _that_  for? And then with a sudden tingling of his nerves, he wonders if it was for  _him_.

Then he sees the plain white cotton panties that don't match, and he realizes it was probably just a bra she found that fit. Besides, she doesn't want sex. Not yet. Just  _eventually_. He wonders when  _eventually_ will be. He hopes it's soon. Or maybe not. He needs to work up some endurance with this kissing. Maybe if he can get used to staying hard without satisfaction, he won't cum like a jack rabbit the first time they do it.

"They're still very wet," she says. "But you can wear the pair of pants I patched yesterday morning. Do you have a spare long-sleeve shirt?"

"Gotta dry undershirt." He gets a muscle shirt out of his backpack.  

"You could keep wearing that sweatshirt."

"Nah." He yanks the sweatshirt over his head. "Be fine." He slides the worn muscle shirt on. "Get hot when I ride anyhow."

He turns to see her looking him over, her eyes running from his half-bare shoulders and down his arms. Has she ever done that before? Looked at him like  _that_? Like he's some kind of candy she wants to lick up? If she  _has_ , he sure as hell hasn't noticed.

She doesn't do it for long. Her eyes are back on the French press now as she pushes down the top. "You should have woken me up sooner. You only got three hours of sleep to my five."

"'M fine." He crouches down to draw his pants out of his backpack. Carol's already dressed. He turns his back to her and drops his sweat pants.

"You really do  _go_  commando," she says.

He flushes. "Stahp." He wants to look over his shoulder to see if she's checking him out, but he knows that will just make him turn more red. God knows he'd be looking at her ass, if he had a chance.

He yanks on his Wranglers, pulls up his zipper, and turns around as he finishes buttoning. By the time he's put on his belt and knives and holster with handgun, she's pouring the coffee.

He sits beside her on her rolled-up sleeping bag before a campfire. She has a map spread open at her feet. "Gotta route planned?" he asks as she hands him a tin cup of coffee.

"We went out of the way to see that grave. I originally thought we'd backtrack and then continue south east through Richmond to Jamestown, but I'm not sure we should head back toward that herd in Staunton. It may be growing." She draws her finger down on the map. "We could go straight south from here down to Lynchburg and then east over to Jamestown. But that would add an extra day or two to our trip."

'S do it."

"Yeah? You don't mind spending the extra time with me, huh?" His lips are twitching into a bashful smile when her next words freeze them. "Don't mind stretching this a couple of days?"

_Stretching this a couple days?_  This "more than friends" thing, is it just for  _this trip_?

When they go back…and she goes back to ruling her Kingdom, and he goes back to hunting for the Hilltop…do they go back to just being friends?

"Something wrong?" she asks.

He sips slowly, lowers the tin cup between his hands, and lets the heat sear his palms. He's not sure he wants to know the answer to his question. "Nah. Coffee's just too hot."

"Well blow on it, silly."

[*]

They ride up hilly, windy, two-lane mountain roads through acres of forest where the live oak trees are draped in vibrant green leaves. The Dogwoods have just begun to bud. In a month they'll flower and coat the hills with pollen, but for now the air is fresh, without even the stench of walkers. The breeze is sweet with the scent of early spring, of after-rain, and the birds sing mating songs from tree to tree, filling the air with a symphony of chirping.

"I bet this is gorgeous in the fall," Carol says as she steers her horse a little closer to his.

"Mhmhm."

She says something else, but Daryl's not really listening. He's wondering if this thing they're doing is like one of those summer camp flings the kids at his junior high school used to talk about.

"…you think?" Carol asks.

"Hmmm?"

"Should we?"

"Should we what?"

She points to the road sign that indicates the direction of a ski resort. "Make camp?"

"We ain't gone that far today. Barely thirty miles."

"But it's a  _resort_." She smiles teasingly. "It could be  _romantic_."

"Pfft." But if Carol  _does_  think it's romantic, then it might be a place she wants to make out for a long time. Besides, they should rest the horses. They rode the things hard yesterday. "A'ight."

 [*]

"This is gorgeous." Carol stands on the deck of the lodge overlooking the mountains. The rusted swings of the distant ski lift seem frozen in place, while a few stray walkers roam the overgrown, snowless slopes. The horses are stabled downstairs in the basement game room, where there's a sliding glass door they blocked with furniture, in case any walkers wend their way to it. But then they came up to the lobby, cleared the rest of the lodge, dumped their gear, and came out on this deck.

Daryl lowers his binoculars. He doesn't see more than eight walkers out there, and they're a long ways off. He can pick them off if they get too close to the lodge, but the creatures can't smell them from there.

"I always wanted to go skiing as a little girl," Carol says. "I begged my mother to take us for winter break, but she always said we couldn't afford it."

"Ain't no slopes in Georgia."

"I wanted to go to Gatlinburg. Tennessee. It was only a four-hour drive. But we never even drove out of Georgia. Of course, our car never could go more than a hundred miles straight without the engine smoking." She turns from the rail. "I'm hungry."

Daryl takes the hint and goes hunting. He kills three walkers while he's out there, and his boots get wet in a creek, but he comes back with a sizable rabbit. He leaves his boots and socks to dry by the fire, where Carol sets a pot of rabbit stew boiling, and he follows her barefoot back out onto the deck to watch the sun set over the mountains. The wooden planks are still slightly warm from the afternoon sun, though the air has cooled to about fifty degrees, and the tops of his bare toes are cold.

"I see why they call it the Blue Ridge now," Carol says.

The caps of the hills have grown a purple-blue beneath the red-orange glow of the sinking sun. Carol snakes her arm around his waist and rests her head on his shoulder until the last of the light slips below the horizon.

Daryl's stomach growls, and she laughs and takes his hand and draws him inside.

They sit at a wooden table in the rustic lobby of the lodge, not too far from the fireplace, and eat by the flickering light of the flames.

"I found some wild onions outside while you were gone," Carol says. "Put them in here along with that basil from the café and a few other spices. Do you like it?"

"Mhmh. Good."

"We can sleep on that bearskin rug tonight, in front of the fireplace. It looks comfy."

"Mhmh."

"We might want to put a sleeping bag down over it, though. It's a bit dusty."

"Mhmhm."

"Penny for your thoughts? You've been quiet all day."

"'M always quiet." He lifts his bowl, tilts it to his mouth, and drinks the last of the broth down.

"True enough."

Daryl sets his bowl on the table and looks at the line of broth still clinging to the rim. He runs a finger around it and then sucks the residue off his fingertip. When he looks up, she's watching him.

"You seem worried about something, though," she says, "Care to share?"

His eyes flit back into his bowl. Maybe it's better he knows, even if he doesn't want to know. "Just wonderin' somethin'."

"What's that?"

"How long's this s'posed to last?"

"Well, about nine or ten more days I suppose."

His gut sinks. "Oh."

"Why? Do you want it to last longer?"

He looks up from the bowl. "Well….yeah. Mean. Wouldn't mind."

"You're not worried about having time to hunt before the winter?"

He draws his canteen toward himself. "Wouldn't really take up that much more time than bein' friends, would it? Mean, we'd just be doin' diff'rn stuff, right?"

Carol's looking at him like he's speaking Greek. "I'm talking about how many more days this trip will take. What are  _you_  talking about?"

He flushes.

"Daryl?"

He stands and pads over in his bare feet, picks up the poker, and stokes the fire.

"Daryl? What were  _you_  talking about?"

"How much longer ya wanna be more 'n friends," he mutters.

She laughs that laugh she laughs when he's done something stupid and he doesn't know what the stupid thing is. Her voice is happy and affectionate. "Pookie, there's no expiration date on it. Did you think I wanted a short fling?"

"Dunno." He slides the fire poker back in its stand, turns to look at her, and sees her face has grown suddenly worried.

"Is that what  _you_  want?" she asks.

"Hell no. Less'n 's what  _you_  want. Mean…still aint' what I want. But I'll take it."

"I don't want a fling, Daryl. I don't know exactly where we're going to go from here, or how we're going to get there, or how long it's going to take, but I know I don't want to go  _backward_."

Daryl sighs in relief. Carol stands, comes over to him by the fire, and puts her hands on his hips. She presses her forehead to his. "If I just wanted a fling, we'd be moving faster. But I want us to take our time."

"A'ight."

She tilts her chin up to kiss his forehead. He leans into the feel of her lips. Of all her little kisses, he thinks he loves this one most, maybe because it was the first way she ever kissed him.

Carol steps back. "Is it? All right? If we take things slowly?"

"Yeah. 'Course." He chews on his bottom lip and hopes it's not a bad move to ask for clarification. "Does that mean we ain't havin' sex?"

She smiles. "We're going to have sex.  _Eventually_. Just…maybe not right away."

He wants to know when eventually is, a ballpark time frame at least, but he doesn't ask. He just nods. "A'ight. But…uh…we gonna make out tonight?"

Her eyes smile, and she nods.

"Want me to open some wine?" he offers. That might loosen her up a little, like it did last night.

"I don't need wine, Pookie." She turns and walks over to her backpack, which she lifts up onto an armchair near the fireplace. "Why don't we brush teeth, get in our sweats, and make up our bed? And then we'll see where the night takes us?"

Excitement and anxiety fire his nerves. "Mhmhm." He lifts his pack into another chair to unzip it and begins to prepare for bed.

[*]

The making out is going well. Daryl thinks so anyway. He sits on top of a sleeping bag spread out over the bear skin rug, with Carol sitting sideways on his lap, her thin white tank top clinging tightly to her breasts while her fingertips toy with his left ear. The fire warms the arm he's wrapped around her waist to steady her, but it's her kisses that warm his face.

She did this thing a minute ago where she raked her teeth gently over his earlobe, and it made him moan, which was damn embarrassing, because he doesn't make sounds like that. Usually.

He's got a hard-on again. It's tenting his soft sweatpants like a damn pole, and he's afraid if she shifts just slightly on his lap, she's going to feel it and want to stop.

She's back on his lips now. They kiss for a long time, and still it doesn't seem like enough. He thrusts his tongue into her mouth for a moment, and then back out. He buries his hand in her hair to push her deeper into another kiss.

Carol suddenly pulls away.

"Sorry," he mutters. He's never kissed on a girl like this before – for this long, this many times in a row, this deeply. There was never much making out before the fucking when it came to the kind of women he’s been with. What little kissing there was he pulled away from as quickly as he could, so he could get to the less personal fucking. It certainly never excited him, not the way kissing Carol does. He has no idea what he's doing, and he thinks she pulled away because it wasn't good. "I can try n' fix it."

"Fix what?"

"The kissin'. Could learn."

She smiles. "There's nothing to fix. I just needed some air."

"Ya'd tell me though? If there was?" He doesn't want to be another one of her mediocre experiences. "Look, Carol…don't want ya pretendin' to like shit ya don't. Not with me. Ya want me to do somethin' diff'rn, just  _tell_  me."

In the light glow of the fireplace, her face grows pink. "I like the way you suck your fingers."

Lines of confusion crinkle Daryl's brow. "What?"

"When you get food on them. The way you suck them, it's…I don't know. It turns me on a little."

What?  _That_  turns her on? He thought she was always looking at him when he did that because she thought it was disgusting. "I…ya want me to suck my fingers?" He'll do just about anything for her, but that's ridiculous. He'd feel like a damn fool, sucking his own fingers without a reason. " _Now_?"

She laughs. "No. I want you to maybe…" She trails off.

"Maybe what?"

Carol picks at a loose thread on his muscle shirt, near his shoulder. "Suck my tongue like that. When we're kissing. I mean, not too hard, and not the entire time, just - "

Daryl moves in and silences her with his mouth.

He's guessing she likes it because she gasps a few times between tongue-sucking kisses and starts to squirm on his lap. When she shifts, she hits his erection with her ass, and he freezes. "Sorry," he mutters. "Know we're just kissin'. Dunno why it's doin' that."

Carol laughs. "Well, I think maybe it likes me." Daryl flushes, and she shifts herself so that she's straddling his lap with her knees on the sleeping bag. It's torture, having his erection pressed right up against her like that. She pushes his shoulder, like she wants him to lie down on his back, so he does.

Her blue eyes flash in the firelight as she puts her palms down flat on either side of his shoulders and bends to kiss him, her lower body still pressed torturously to his. He tries sucking her tongue again, and she must really like it, because she starts rubbing her lower half against his, riding his erection through their sweat pants.

She rubs slowly at first, but then harder and faster while their lips smack and their tongues tangle. Going commando seems like an especially good choice to him now. "Damn," he hisses between kisses.

He thinks it might kill him, the way she's dry humping him like a teenage girl in the backseat of her boyfriend's first car. Through her tank top, he touches a breast, and he can feel her nipple erect against the fabric. She kisses him harder and humps faster, whimpering against his lips. Daryl snakes a hand underneath the shirt and cups her bare breast. He squeezes gently, and then slides his calloused thumb over her hardened nipple. Carol suddenly freezes.

_Shit._  Maybe he shouldn't have done that. Maybe he should have asked before going under her shirt.

He's about to apologize when she says, "Oh" like she's surprised. But then her oh becomes an " _Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh_!" and she shivers before collapsing on him. She slides half off of him and buries her face in the crook of his neck.

Did she just cum?

He's pretty sure she did.

It wasn't loud, and it wasn't hard, but it was definitely an orgasm of some kind - and one she didn't seem to be expecting. "Ya a'ight?" he asks.

"Mhmhm." She shivers a little more, cuddles in, and lodges one of her legs between both his.

Goddamn but his balls hurt. And his dick is still at full attention. He wants to ask her to give him some relief, but he also doesn't want her to think that he expects her to just do things for him and pretend to like it. He thinks maybe he's just going to have to ride this one out, just let her be the one to feel good this time, so she doesn't feel pressure and isn't shy about asking for what she wants. "Ya feel good?" he asks.

"I didn't know…" She raises her face from its hiding spot and kisses his cheek. Her breath is warm in his ear. "I didn't know that could happen just by doing that. I mean, that's just as good as the best one. And we weren't even…you know."

Just as good as the  _best one_? He's not exactly a skilled lover, but he's made women cum before. They  _screamed_. He's pretty sure that the little pop and shiver she just experienced is far from the  _best one_. "'S gonna be better 'n that when we…ya know. Should be. Better."

She kisses his cheek again. "The fire's going to die later. Will you get your sleeping bag for a cover?"

"Mhmh." He tries to ignore his aching hard-on while he sits up and reaches for the other sleeping bag. He supposes this signals the end of the make-out session, and now they're going to sleep. He's still hard when he unzips the bag and drapes it over them. He lies down on his back, wondering how long this painful erection is going to last, and if he can discretely take care of it after she falls asleep.

Carol puts her head on his shoulder and her hand on his bare abdomen where his t-shirt has ridden up. But then her hand shifts. Down. Under the waistband of his sweat pants.

He hisses in surprised pleasure when she grasps him, and shudders when she circles the tip with her thumb and spreads the pre-crum up his shaft. But it's when she starts to stroke that he groans, "Oh fuuuuuuuuck yes!"

Either she's damn practiced at this, or it's been too long since a woman's touched him there, or maybe a bit of both, because it doesn't take long at all. His whole body trembles afterward, and he lies there, half stunned, licking his lips and catching his breath while she slides her hand out and grabs a washcloth from her nearby pack to wipe up.

The fire has died down to a gentle lapping, and without any crackling, his breathing sounds extremely loud in his own ears.

"Do you want to clean yourself up?" she asks.

Clean himself up? He can barely move. Or breathe. Or think. "Later."

She tosses the washcloth she's wiped her hand with somewhere and settles back down against him with her head on his chest.

His left arm falls loosely across her. Eventually, his mind begins to form thoughts again – Why is she so damn  _good_  at that? Is that something she just got really good at so she could avoid mediocre sex she didn't much want? Or is he just that bad at lasting? Is he going to last when they finally do it? Or is he just going to be another one of her mediocre sex stories?

_Shut up_ , he tells that old, nagging voice of self-doubt. He's already given her an orgasm that's as good as her  _best one_. "'S only up from here," he murmurs, and closes his eyes. Damn but he feels good. It's like there's not a single tense muscle anywhere in his body.

The feel of her small hand coming to rest against his hip is the last thing he remembers before he falls asleep.


	8. A Night at the Plantation House

The whining of the horses downstairs awakens Daryl. The sun has not quite risen. Carol's sound asleep, but her backpack has been moved and the crumpled washcloth is gone. There's a stack of clean towels on the end table between the arm chairs she must have scrounged up from one of the lodge rooms, and the map is open on the table next to a now dead oil lamp. He wonders how late she stayed up studying it and feels a little guilty that her orgasm was apparently not as sleep-inducing as his was.

He goes down to the basement of the lodge to check on the animals and narrowly dodges a pile of horseshit. A  _thud-thud-thud_  sounds from the direction of the furniture-blocked glass door. The horses have moved as far away from the door as they can, given the length of their tethers.  

Daryl peers over the furniture to judge how many there are, loads his bow, and goes through a dark hallway in the basement to the emergency exit. Cautiously, he pushes open the heavy door, and when nothing reaches inside, he emerges. He lets the door close with a softly click and then strolls all the way around the porch under the deck above. He stops at the edge of the lodge and peeks around.

One of the walkers, clad in torn-up snow boots, stops slamming against the glass door and sniffs the air. It turns its face toward Daryl and is met with an arrow between the eyes.

Daryl reloads and picks off a second walker. He reloads again and shoots a third before they get too close and he has to toss his bow and draw both knives. He strides forward between two walkers, throws out his arms, and drives the blades into the sides of their heads at once. As he jerks the blades out of the decaying flesh, he kicks back an approaching walker, and then he does the same thing again with the next two walkers until all nine are dead.

Daryl surveys his handy work while catching his breath, and then scans the slopes for more. He has to shield his eyes against the rising sun, but all seems quiet beyond the lodge.

He looks down at one of the walkers and nudges it with his foot because he thinks he sees a flash of metal that might be a knife strapped to its belt, but it’s only the silver clip of a crumpled and fades ski pass.

He strolls back inside, feeling like a man who has just chivalrously killed a cockroach for his woman.

[*]

While Carol continues to sleep, Daryl snags one of the towels and his pack and hikes to the creek. It's clean and free of floaters, so he strips down and washes up quickly in the frigid water, dresses in his Wranglers, his only long-sleeve shirt, and his leather vest, and then washes and wrings out his sweatpants. On the way back, he shoots a snake slithering through the knee-high grass.

Carol is awake, dressed, and making coffee when he returns. "Where were you?"

"Huntin'." He tosses the skinned snake on the table in front of her. It's not exactly breakfast in bed, but it's the best he knows how to do.

"You could have left me a note. I was worried."

Is that what it means to be more than friends? He has to leave  _notes_  now? "Didn't want to wake ya."

"I fail to see how leaving a note would have awoken me."

He can't tell if she's irritated or teasing. So he points to the snake. "'S for breakfast."

"That's a big one. What is it?"

"Eastern rat snake. Ain't usually that long."

"You sleep well?" she asks, raising her pretty blue eyes suggestively to his.

He ducks his head and smiles. "Yeah. Real well. You?"

"I was up for a while after you conked out, but once I fell asleep, I slept really well."

He goes out onto the deck to hang his sweatpants to dry while she pan fries up the snake on the fire. Daryl looks out over the hills and thinks this place would make a good camp, if only they could fence it in. Not that they need a camp. They both have homes. Different homes, but homes.

He'd move to the Kingdom, though, if she asked.  

He wonders if Carol  _will_  ask, if one day she'll want him to move in with her, if he'll be the Queen's  _consort_. The Kingdom's subjects would probably be uneasy with a wild man hovering behind her throne. She says that this more-than-friends thing doesn't have an expiration date, but he worries things will be different when they go back. She's the head of a world where he's only a guest, and she hardly ever visits his world at all.

Daryl jumps when Carol slides her arms around him from behind and squeezes. This is what it means to be more than friends, he supposes. She gets to hug on him whenever she damn well feels like it. And maybe that means he gets to do the same. So when she slides around his side, with her arm around his waist now, he drapes an arm over her shoulders and pulls her close. They look out quietly over the slopes together, until she tells him breakfast is ready and he follows her inside.

[*]

Because the journey is downhill for miles, they make better time than yesterday. Carol, in her late-night musings, found a more efficient route than going all the way down to Lynchburg, but she assures him they'll still have several more days together, because she might want to spend an extra one in Jamestown when they get there.  

He steers Freckles a little closer to her horse, scans the rural road left and right and ahead for threats, and then asks, "What kept ya up last night?"

She smiles. "I think I got a second wind from the fooling around."

He likes the way she says that,  _fooling around_ , like they're in high school and he's her first real crush. "Think it put me to sleep," he admits.

"Men and women are different like that."

Are they? Nearly every woman he's fucked went to sleep soon after. Then again, nearly every one of them was drunk or high when they were fucking. The worst was the few times they didn't, and he had to listen to them bitch about their jobs, or their sisters, or – worst of all - their boyfriends.

He likes listening to Carol talk, though, likes the soft sound of her voice. He likes learning more about her, even if he doesn't always know what questions to ask. "Ya like ice cream?"

"What?" she laughs.

He flushes at his lame attempt at conversation, and for a moment he's thrown right back to junior high – to the first and last time he tried to talk to a cute, sweet girl he liked. He tightens his jaws and scans for threats again.

"I like ice cream," she says, and then, clearly trying not to laugh, "Do you like ice cream?"

"Ain't no more ice cream," he mutters. What a dumb ass question that was.

"My favorite flavor was bubble gum."

Daryl forgets his embarrassment. "Aw, that shit sucked! Why'd girls always like that?"

"Because it had those little pink pieces of bubblegum in it."

"'S like eatin' that cheap ass bubble gum in the quarter machines. The chiclet shit."

Carol rests one hand on the horn of her saddle. "Well, I  _loved_  it."

"Ya know, ya swallow all that gum 'stead of spittin' it out, it'll make a ball in yer stomach 'n just sit there for days."

"That's just a lie our mothers told us."

"Pfft," he scoffs. "Next thing yer gonna tell me if ya swallow a watermelon seed, ain't gonna grow a watermelon in yer stomach."

Carol laughs, and he smiles because he made her laugh. He feels like he accomplished something, like the first time he figured out how to tie a good knot.

[*]

They camp in an old, historic plantation house. Time has taken its toll on the once bright white paint. Tall columns on the portico hold up a balcony on the second floor and Carol notes it would be a nice place to have breakfast in the morning.

But they eat dinner in the old dining room, by candle light. Daryl's snagged a rabbit, which Carol has roasted rather than stewed this time, alongside more of the wild onions she collected from the ski slopes. She gathered enough for three days. There are also wild strawberries, plucked from the grounds of the plantation. They're small and naturally bitter, but she's added some sugar and cinnamon she snagged at the Monitcello café. Daryl points to them with his fork and mumbles, "Real treat."

Between bites, he tells her he found a spring house, built over the creek where the cool waters flow, creating a sort of natural refrigerator all year long. "Should do that at the Hilltop. All we got is a root cellar."

"The Kingdom isn't near any creeks."

"Ain't the best location for a camp," he says as he pops a seasoned onion in his mouth. "Too urban."

"We've done just fine, thank you. We have electricity. And heat in the winter."

"Wasn't a criticism."

"Of course it was. You think the Hilltop's better. I guess that's to be expected. Everyone cheers for their own team."

Daryl chews more slowly. She sounds suddenly upset, and he doesn't have a clue why. "Ain't we on the same team?"

"We've  _always_  been on the same team," she replies. "But you know what I meant."

"Nah," he admits. "Don't."

She toys with her food for a moment and then looks across the table at him. "I know Hilltop is home for you. I know you don't  _get_  the Kingdom. But those people rely on me to lead them. And it means something to me, the Kingdom's idealism. It's home."

"Know that." He still doesn't know why she's upset, though.

"Do you think you'd ever want to spend more time there? Or do you just hate it?"

So she's been thinking about the same thing he has. Maybe  _she's_  also been worrying about what happens when they go back. "Don't hate it!" he insists. "Ya done good with it. Yeah. Could spend more time there, if ya want."

"I'd like that." She smiles, and they leave it at that, without making any definite plans.

[*]

After dinner, they check on the horses in the plantation's stable, secure the entryways from walkers, and then wash up in the cold creek – face and hands and teeth. They return to the house, where Daryl lights the fire in the living room and Carol makes a nest on the floor before it. She doesn't much like sleeping in strange beds, Daryl's realized, and it's probably smart. Who knows how many of them are infested with bed bugs.

She goes to another room to change into her sweats, and he changes in the living room, eagerly looking forward to the make out session he assumes is about to follow, but when she comes back, she sits down in the rocking chair with his leather vest and a thread and needle and starts stitching a loose seam on the inside liner.

"Don't have to do that," Daryl says. At least, not  _now_. Not when they could be making out.

"You don't want it coming unraveled. It's your favorite."

"Mhmhm." Daryl plops down on the couch with the opened bottle of gin from the house in Dumfries. He takes a swig.

Carol pulls the thread through and tugs. "Are you going to be a gentleman and offer me some?"

"Ya like  _gin_?  _Straight up_?"

The fire crackles as she stabs the needle into the vest again. "No, but you should offer it to me."

He holds out the bottle toward her chair. "Want some gin?"

"No thank you."

"Pffft." He draws it back and sips.

She smiles. God he loves her smiles. He stretches his legs out, bare feet up on the glass-topped coffee table, and steals glances at her while she sews. He doesn't drink too much more. He doesn't want to get whiskey dick, in case she wants to make use of his dick later, and, besides, he's not the most charming drunk.

He usually doesn't mind just sitting and staring silently into the fire. God knows he's done it his share of nights alone in the woods, without hardly a thought in his head. But now it just feels like he's waiting for her to be done with her sewing, waiting he hopes, to make out again. He gets impatient waiting, swings his feet off the coffee table, twists the cap back on the gin, and says. "Gonna look 'round upstairs for loot."

No one's been living in the plantation house. It's been conserved as a historical site, and all the drawers of the dressers and desks are empty. But in one of the rooms, he finds a decent scythe hung for display on the wall. It might prove a useful farming tool once sharpened and cleaned. He brings it back down and leans it against the wall by the mantle.

Carol's done sewing, but now she's reading a book she snagged from the built-in bookcase, something leather bound that he thought was just for decoration.

 _Shit_. How long is she going to do that? "'S getting' late, huh?" he asks.

"Not that late," she replies and turns a page.

"Yeah, but, need to get an early start tomorrow."

"Why? Are you in a hurry?"

"Nah," he says. "Just…best to start early when yer travelin'."

"Then I suppose we'll start early." She turns another page. How could she have read that page so fast?

"So, if we're startin' early…should probably….you know."

"What?" She turns another page.  _No way_  she read that page already.

"Go to bed."

"And sleep?" she asks innocently as she turns yet another page.

She's not reading that damn book.

She's  _teasing_  him.

He sees it now, the twinkle in her eyes. But he has no idea how to tease her back. He just feels frustrated. "Wanna make out," he growls.

She looks up from the book with a raised eyebrow. "Is that a question or a statement? Or a command?"

"Do ya wanna…maybe…make out?"

A secretive smile teases the corner of Carol's lips. "I thought you'd never ask." She snaps the book shut.

[*]

Daryl and Carol sit on the couch, half turned toward each other, kissing. He eases his hand under her tank top cautiously, creeping his fingertips up over her bare abdomen, to give her time to stop him if she wants. She doesn't.

She hasn't taken her bra off for bed yet, so he caresses the pert mounds of her breasts beneath the lacy fabric, dips a finger into her cleavage, and then, when he feels the front clasp of the bra, fumbles until he pops her tits free of their silky cage. He takes one breast fully in his hand and squeezes gently. She moans against his mouth, and lets him play with her bare breasts while he sucks her tongue in that way she likes.

Eventually, she starts shifting her breasts against his hand like she wants something he's not delivering. "What?" he murmurs in her ear between kisses. "Tell me what ya want."  

"That thing you did a second ago. Please. Do it again."

"What thing?"

Her cheeks flush pink. "Pinch it."

"Like this?" he murmurs into her ear and gently tweaks her nipple.

She bites her bottom lip and whimpers. He kisses her and tweaks her other nipple, and then she pushes him away. He's afraid he's done it wrong when she straddles his lap, yanks her bra out through her sleeves like some kind of magician, and then puts her hands on the back of the couch on either side of his shoulders, giving him better access under her shirt.

He slides his hands up under the soft cotton of her tank top and returns to play. Carol bends to kiss him roughly, and she gasps and squirms when he pinches both nipples at the same time.

He wishes there weren't these sweatpants between them. He wants to take her and bend her over this couch, yank her pants and panties down, and fuck her fast and hard from behind, the way he got used to doing with women. But he's determined to go at her pace and not scare her off.

And it's not just that. There's something exciting about the slow torture of making out with her. He wants it to last, and he wants to  _see_  her. He actually  _wants_  to face her, to see the way her eyes flash when she looks at him, the way she flutters her eyelids shut and bites her bottom lip when something feels good. He's never felt this weird sensation before - this powerful physical desire tangled with a more tender yearning.

Carol whimpers and moans while he continues to softly pinch and twist. "Fuck ya feel good," he groans, and she silences him with another deep kiss.

He wants to strip her shirt off - to see her, to  _taste_  her, but she seems to be liking this a lot, and he doesn't want to ruin it with a possible false move. She rocks faster, enough that the couch makes a crunching noise. "Touch me," she pleads, her shyness discarded. "Down there."

He takes one hand away from her breasts and slips it inside her sweatpants, over her underwear at first, but after she grinds whimpering against his palm for a moment, he eases a finger underneath the edge of the cotton fabric and begins to play with her. She jerks her hips around his finger and rakes her teeth over his earlobe, drawing a low moan from his mouth before kissing him hard.

Her whimpers become more frustrated, and she begins to move like she's chasing the pleasure.

"Show me where," he demands, and she reaches inside her own pants, takes his hand, and shoves it down inside the top of her underwear. Her fingers splayed out over his, she moves them until he's found the spot and set the pace she seems to want, and then she draws her hand out and buries it in his hair. Her breath deepens and her fingers tighten on the strands of his hair. She lashes his tongue with hers, and cums like she did last night, only a bit harder this time, with a longer and slightly louder  _Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!_ and a deeper shudder.

She collapses her forehead against his shoulder. And then she laughs. The cutest, happiest laugh he's ever heard.

"Feel good?" he asks.

"Yes. New best one."

He smiles. "Gonna be better."

When she slides off his lap to sit beside him, his hand slides out from her pants. His fingers are covered in her juices, and he reaches his hand inside his own pants and rubs them over himself for a lubricant.

Carol, her breath coming slow and shallow still, watches and asks, "Are you going to do that all by yourself, or would you like some help?"

"Love some help."

Carol licks her lips, and for a minute he thinks maybe he's going to get a blow job. But instead she turns toward to him and slips her hand inside his pants.

He doesn't have time to be disappointed, because she's already stroking him, and his head is already thudding back against the couch. He only lasts a little longer than he did last night. He's not used to all this foreplay, but he's going to  _have_  to get used to it, because when they finally do the real thing, he wants to last at least long enough to get her off.

Daryl's still breathing hard when he follows her to their nest on the floor, where she wants to spoon. He's never  _spooned_  with a woman before, but when she curls herself back into the curve of his body, it feels perfect, like she was  _made_  to fit there. He can feel his eyelids sliding down as if drawn by weights.


	9. A Night at the Bar

In the morning, they're both shy smiles and short greetings. They use up the last of the Kingdom's coffee beans, wash up separately in the creek from their night of play, and then breakfast on wild strawberries before hitting the road.

The journey is quiet and beautiful. They follow the road, encased by the forest, until the trees part like waves to reveal a farm or a small housing development or a strip mall, and then close in along the highway again.

In high school, the boys were always talking about running the bases. Daryl think he's on third, but maybe it's second. Wherever he is, it feels like he's still a long way from a home run, because Carol's been learning to like it. When it happens, he wants it to be because she  _asks_  for it,  _directly_ , because she's  _right there_  on the edge, and that way, when they do it, maybe it'll be great for her.  As much as he wants her, the last thing he wants is to be her duty.

"What are you thinking in that head of yours?" Carol asks.

Feeling caught, Daryl lies, "Just wonderin' if anyone's left. Gone almost three hundred miles, ain't seen a soul."

"I'm sure there are still other camps out there, somewhere. I guess we should decide what to do if we stumble on one."

"Avoid it."

"I agree. We've done well, allying our camps, but you never know. I'd hate to stir up a hornet's nest. If we come across anyone," Carol says, "we're not from anywhere. We've just been husband and wife since before the collapse. And we've just been roaming and surviving the whole time."

"Why a husband 'n wife?"

"Because if we pretend we're brother and sister," she reasons, "the way you look at me is going to be creepy."

"Pfft."

"Also, I don't want anyone thinking I'm available."

"Good. 'Cause ya ain't."

"Staking your claim?" Carol asks.

"Nah. Yeah. No. Mean…Ya ain't, right?" More than friends means she's not looking for anyone else, doesn't it? She laughs. What the hell does that laugh mean? "Ya ain't, are ya?"

"No, I'm not available."

Daryl's tense muscles unwind.

Carol shivers at a gust of wind and lets loose the reins long enough to snap up her jacket. "Is it going to rain again?"

"Looks like. Near sunset anyhow." The trees have thinned out again, which means there must be development up ahead, businesses perhaps, or homes. "'S find shelter."

[*]

They find a brick strip mall as a light drizzle begins to fall from the grayed-over sky. The one place without completely shattered windows is a bar and grill, and that's because the windows have been nailed over with boards and four heavily armed men were once holding the place. They're all walkers now, and Daryl and Carol dispense with them quickly.

A thick coat of dust yellows the surface of the brown tables, and empty liquor bottles lay strewn on tables and in booths. A few have been shattered on the floor behind the bar. They clear the place and find it to be much bigger from the inside than it appears to be from the outside. There's even a small private room with a leather couch, a table for ten, and a fireplace. The table has been pushed all the way against the far wall and the chairs stacked on it to make room for the deflated air mattresses that line the floor in front of the couch.

"Let's drag the walkers out and stay here the night," Carol suggests. "It's secure, no broken windows, only one entrance and one exit, and this room to sleep in."

"Hell we gonna do with the horses? Can't fit through that front door."

"I think they'll fit in through the kitchen door that opens onto the loading dock. We can leave them in the kitchen. Just make sure we clear out anything sharp, put some fresh water out for them."

"A'ight."

Carol leads the horses around back while Daryl drags out the walkers. They gather up and inspect the guns: eight rifles, four shotguns, and six handguns. They each claim one rifle for the road, but they won't bother with the other firearms. They both have handguns on them, and there are plenty more firearms back home. It's the ammunition they lack. But behind the bar Carol finds six unopened boxes of .22, four boxes of 9 mm, three boxes of .308, and two boxes of shotgun shells, along with the bullets already in the magazines of the rifles and handguns. "Jackpot!" she exclaims.

"Any booze left back there?" Daryl asks.

She sets an unopened bottle of whiskey on the cherry oak bar. "Looks like they drank everything else. There's a little left in some other bottles, but they've probably been open too long. I wouldn't be surprised if they all died of alcohol poisoning one night."

A CD boom box sits on the bar next to a haphazard stack of CDs. Daryl picks it up, flips it over, and finds it has no batteries. He looks at the small, battery-operated appliances on the counter behind the bar and on some of the tables. "Looks like they had a lot of battery-operated shit. Wonder if they got more batteries in that storage room."

"Let's see."

The storage room feels about ten degrees cooler than the rest of the bar, which means that if there  _are_  batteries, they may not have gone bad in the hot summer.

"Eureka!" Carol shouts as she pulls out a cardboard box from the shelf. Batteries. Still in their original packaging. Dozens of them, and three different kinds. "If these work, we're going to have to leave behind the open bottles of booze from the house in Dumfries to make room for them."

"Nah! We got ‘nuff room."

"Not for the dried beans, salt, rice, and sugar, too," she says, pointing to another shelf, which has one unopened package of each. The open ones they find to be crawling with weevils.

"Fine. I'll drink down the gin tonight, 'n we'll leave the brandy behind."

"MREs, too," Carol says. "Four left. Need to make room for those."

"Nah. ‘S just eat those for super." There's not going to be much good hunting near a strip mall, and, besides, it's raining hard outside now. He can here the pitter patter above.

"All four?"

"Ain't had much lunch."

"We should save two for the road," she insists. "We'll split a bottle of wine tonight to make room."

They open one of the packages of AA batteries and test them on a small, battery-operated table lamp and some kind of disco light ball on a stand. They both work, and the disco ball casts multicolored light in a haze over the barroom floor. "Funky," Carol says. "Let's try the boom box."

She slides in the batteries, slips in an Aretha Franklin CD, and hits play. Music blares out:

_What you want,_  
_Baby, I got it!_  
_What you need,_  
_Do you know I got it?_

Carol starts dancing backward. Daryl leans back against the bar and watches with a smirk.

Eventually she dances toward him, singing along:

_Oooh your kisses, are sweeter than honey_  
_And guess what?_

She laces a finger in his belt loop and starts pulling him from the bar.

_So is my money._

"Ain't yer money I want."

"Yeah, what do you want?" She pushes up against him and starts trying to get him to sway. "You want to dance with me?"

"Can't dance," he says.

"It's not that hard," she insists. "Just put your hands on my hips."

He does, and she wraps her arms around his neck, and they sway together for a while, but eventually he twists his neck to ease it out from under her arms and steps back. "I can't dance worth shit. And this ain't 'zactly a slow dance song."

She pouts. "Party pooper. You know dance is just foreplay. Your loss."

Does that mean they aren’t making out tonight, then? “Nah, ‘s dance." He grabs her by the waist and yanks her in. Her forehead slams against his nose.

"Ow!" she says and steps back.

"Sorry," he mutters and rubs his own nose.

"Maybe dancing isn't in your skill set," she concedes. "Let's just enjoy the music." She walks back to the stack of CDs. "I want to listen to all of these. Well, maybe not Metallica."

"They got Metallica? Hell yeah!" He pops open the lid to the player so that Aretha stops signing.

"Hey! I was listening to that."

"Nah. We're listenin' to this." Daryl cracks open the Metallica CD, pops it in, cranks up the music, and starts banging his head. Carol lunges for the CD player and turns the volume down.

"You'll attract walkers," she scolds him. Then she laughs. "I never pegged you for a headbanger."

"Why not? Don't I look like one?"

"I thought you'd like old school country. Johnny Cash. Merle Haggard. Hank Williams."

Daryl smirks. "Patsy Cline?"

"Well, maybe not Patsy Cline."

"Pfft. Well I never pegged you for a soul sister."

"I do love Aretha. And Sam and Dave. And Otis Redding. Oh, God, especially Otis Redding. If they have Otis," she starts sifting through the stack of CDs, "we're listening to him tonight when we make out."

So that means they _are_ still making out? "They got Otis?" he asks hopefully.

"No, but they have Van Morrison." She holds up Moondance. "That'll do."

"Asshole's white."

"He has soul. Trust me. You don't like Van Morrison?"

Daryl shrugs. "Who is he?"

"You don't know Van Morrison? Brown Eyed Girl?"

"Oh, _that_ guy," Daryl mutters.

"Well that's not his best song," Carol assures him.

"My girl's got blue eyes anyhow."

That must have been a good thing to say, because Carol smiles and kisses him softly. She pulls away though, just when it's getting interesting. "Well, if we're listening to your music," she says, "then we're playing my game." She points to the fooz ball table.

"That's yer game?" Daryl asks skeptically.

"That's my game."

"Pfft. A'ight."

Daryl has every intention of letting her win, until he realizes she really does know what she's doing, and then he's determined to beat her.

He doesn't.

"Fuck," he mutters when the little white ball flies into his goal to score the game winning point. "Where ya been playin' fooz ball?" Daryl's played it in bars before. He thought he was pretty good at it.

"My first boyfriend had a table. We used to play it all the time, every time we went to his house."

"The asshole who dumped ya when ya wouldn't fuck 'em?"

"I probably just should have. Then maybe I'd have ended up married to him instead of Ed. Harold wasn't so bad. Other than dumping me for not putting out…he treated me pretty well." She smiles teasingly. "But then I might never have met you."

"Would he of got ya through the first few weeks?" Ed was a piece of shit, but he had storage food. He had a shotgun. And he got his wife and daughter out of their town when the walkers overran it.

"Probably. Harold really filled out when he hit puberty. He was a linebacker on the football team in high school. And he joined the Navy after he graduated. I imagine he could fight." She slaps one of the poles of the fooz ball table, and her little chipped yellow men spin. "Let's get ready for bed."

They change into their sweats, take the boom box with them into the private room, put on some music, and light the fire. Daryl opens a bottle of wine for Carol, but he hits the open bottle of gin when he plops down onto the black leather couch.

"You expect me to drink this whole bottle of wine by myself?" she asks as she sits down beside him and plucks the glass he's poured her from off the floor. "Are you trying to get in my pants?"

"Only as far in as ya want me."

They both get a little drunk. Well, a lot drunk if he's being honest. They can't help it, because it feels like a party, with the music and the giddiness from all the stuff they found. But Daryl's not a mean drunk tonight because he's happy, happier than he can ever remember being, and he guesses maybe the liquor's always just magnified whatever mood was already beneath the surface.

They end up making out sloppily in their nest by the fire, and despite all the gin he drank, he's still as hard as a rock. She tugs his shirt over his head and traces every sinew on his chest. She kisses the lashes on his back and asks about his tattoo.

She lets him get her shirt off tonight, too, and roll her on her back to rake his eyes over her. Maybe it's the wine that makes her less shy, or maybe she would have let him anyway. He doesn't know. He just knows she beautiful and he could stare at her tits for hours, and that she likes it when he flicks her nipple with his tongue, because she tells him, "I like that I like that I like that oh my God I really really like that" and then titter-laughs.

He laughs too and drags his mouth from her breast to her lips and kisses her.

When he pulls away, her eyes are closed, as if maybe the room is spinning on her. "Fuck me," she says.

"What?"

"Fuck me good and hard."

"Yer drunk."

"You're drunker," she mumbles.

"No. Pretty sure yer drunker."

"I know I am but what are you?"

"'M hard. 'M hard as…" His brain is slipping over its own thoughts. "…a goddamn thing that's really….really…hard."

"Then fuck me," she insists, her eyes still closed, and her arm now flung over them. "Fuck me any way you want to. I'm not going anywhere."

He'd like to. He'd like to fuck her any way he wants to, and there's about a dozen ways he can think he wants to. But he's not so sure she's going to really feel it at this point, and he's not so sure she's not going to pass out on him halfway through. "Yer drunk." He throws himself on his back beside her. "Go to sleep drunk woman."

"But then who's going to take care of you?"

"Take care of myself." He's not sure he's going to need to, though. His erection is starting to fade.

"Can I watch?" she asks.

"If ya can stay awake."

She rolls on her side and tucks her hands under her cheek. "I'm going to watch. Dooooo it!"

He snorts. "Well now I ain't hard no more, drunk lady."

"I'm watching," she insists, but then she closes her eyes, and she doesn't open them again that night.

[*]

When Daryl wakes up, Carol's not in their nest on the floor. He drags himself up and stumbles around looking for his muscle shirt. When he shakes out the sleeping bag, the shirt flutters out. After dressing, he finds Carol sitting at the bar with a canteen of water, a cup of coffee, and a bottle of aspirin from that school nurse's office beside her. He settles onto the stool next to her, and she pushes the aspirin over.

"'M fine," he says. "Nothin' coffee won't cure."

"You can have the rest of mine." She slides over her half-finished cup. "It's not sitting well with my stomach."

He sips. The instant crystals aren't as good as the Kingdom's beans, but she made it  _strong_.

Carol traces the pattern in the wood on the bar with a single fingertip. "What did we do last night?"

"Ya don't 'member?"

"I remember  _some_  of it. I know we had a good time. But did we…" She turns her head just enough to peer at him.

"Nah. Not that. Not yet."

She looks relieved.

"Would it of been so damn awful if we had?" he asks defensively.

"No, of course not. But I'd like to remember our first time. I'd like it to be…you know.  _Special._ "

"Yeah," he murmurs softly. "Figured. 'S why I didn't fuck ya when ya asked me to."

"I asked you to?"

He sets the coffee cup down. "'Least three times."

She slides to the edge of her stool, puts a hand on both his cheeks, turns his face to hers, and kisses him hard.

 


	10. Captured

 

A grasping walker lies, with half its body missing, on the highway. Carol casually steers around it and meets up with Daryl's horse again. They've ridden for hours, and they're probably less than five miles from the historic Jamestown settlement now. They saw a sign not long ago. They'll get there just before sunset, camp there, and in the morning Carol can search for evidence of her long dead ancestor.

"So what was  _your_  favorite flavor?" Carol asks. "Of ice cream."

"'Nilla."

"How boring."

"Ain't borin'," he insists over the light clomp-clomp-clomp of the horses' hooves. "Makes the best base."

"But by  _itself_ , it's boring."

"Nah. Ain't. No one takes the time to 'preciate it, 's all."

She steers a little closer to him, so that their legs and horses are near brushing, and teases, "So you like to take your time appreciating things,  _do you_?"

He rolls his eyes. He knows this is another one of her lame sex jokes, but as usual he's not entirely sure what she's going for. "Stahp."

She laughs. "Oh, come on, you love it."

"Don't."

"You love my corny jokes," she insists.

"Don't love yer corny jokes. Just love you."

Carol's horse slows slightly, and it's only when Daryl's pulled ahead by a few paces that he realizes what he just said. When she catches up to him, he looks straight ahead. He can feel her eyes on his face.

She begins to speak. "Did you just say – "

A gunshot in the distance startles the horses, and they rear back. A burst of frightened birds flies over their heads across the highway.

"Shit!" Daryl cries while steadying Freckles.

From somewhere around a bend in the highway, horse hooves pound the pavement with a force that sounds like a cavalry.

"Quick," Carol cries, "In the woods!"

They drive their horses off the road and into the brush, leaping them over a fallen tree, and steering around the foliage until they're just far enough in to be masked. They dismount quickly. "Stay with the horses," Daryl orders. "Keep 'em quiet 'n safe. Gonna take a look."

"Careful," she warns as she fishes out a pair of binoculars from her pack and hands them over. "And take a rifle."

"'M a better shot with my bow."

"If they see you, you won't have time to reload."

He relents, swings his crossbow onto the ground, and draws out the rifle from behind the saddle. He returns to the edge of the tree line, where he lies obscured in the brush to survey the highway.

A man on a horse thunders by, riding hard. He holds a black semiautomatic handgun in his right hand, and turns to shoot behind himself, at what, Daryl can't see, until eight more mounted men burst on the scene.

The man who leads the pursuers rides hands free, gripping his horse with his legs while aiming a wooden rifle with two hands. Long, wavy brown hair spills out from beneath the white Stetson hat that rests atop his head, and both a machete and a silver revolver ride his right hip. There's a crack from his rifle, and the spent brass flies back and clatters on the asphalt.

The fleeing man jerks forward and then back before tumbling off his horse, which keeps galloping on. He rolls over onto his back and, screaming, seizes the shoulder where he was shot.

The man in back of the posse bends down like a jockey, drives forward, and overtakes the rest of the group as he pursues the now riderless horse. Meanwhile, the other seven men rear to a stop, dismount, run to the fallen man, and surround him at the point of guns and swords.

The man in the white Stetson says something to one of the posse members, who returns to his horse, pulls out a long pole from behind the saddle, and jogs to an abandoned pick-up truck on the shoulder of the road. He leaps into its bed and clatters onto its roof, where he stands and unravels a flag. The man begins to wave the flag, and the red cross ripples of the white background.

Daryl recognizes that flag from the American history book series he used to page through when he was sent to the library during recess for misbehaving. It's the St. George Cross - one of the flags carried to the New World by the early English explorers. The man waves the flag in a strange, controlled, and patterned way. Soon enough, Daryl realizes the flag waver is using Morse code, probably to communicate with someone farther down the road.

A gunshot sounds to his right, and Daryl swivels the binoculars back to find the man in the white Stetson shouldering his rifle. The posse steps away from the fallen man, who now lies dead on the pavement with a bullet in his forehead.

If Daryl wanted to kill someone who was already down, he wouldn't waste a bullet doing it. These men must have a lot of ammunition back in their camp, if they can expend it so recklessly. The thought makes him nervous. He and Carol would do best to lay low in the woods until the group has gone back in the southern direction from which it came. In fact, maybe it would be best for the two of them to head back north and stay out of the gunmen's territory altogether.

Daryl is thinking all this, and just beginning to swivel the binoculars back to the waving flag, when he hears another gunshot – from  _behind_  him this time – in the woods.

His heart thuds  _Carol!_

He drops the binoculars and uses both hands to push himself up. Scrambling to his feet, he unshoulders his rifle and plunges anxiously into the woods. Freckles gallops toward him, slapping through branches, snapping twigs, and neighing frantically. Eager to get to Carol, Daryl doesn't pause to stop the fleeing horse, but crashes forward through the woods.

He finds her sitting propped up against a tree and drawing deep breaths while applying pressure to a wound at her side. Blood seeps through the fingers of her bare hands. Her handgun rests on the forest floor beside her. Carol's horse has not left her side, but whinnies softly. A man lies on the forest floor not far from the animal, and just beyond his unraveled fingers gleams a bloody knife. The bullet wound is in his chest. He must have approached her from behind. She heard, turned while drawing, and got slashed in the side before she shot him at close range.

"Daryl," she half whispers, and then flings her head back against the trunk of the tree.

Daryl runs to the saddlebags on her horse and throws the flaps open to begin his desperate search for the medical supplies. With a sinking sensation, he remembers the supplies were in the saddle bags tied to the fleeing Freckles. So he rips her backpack from the horse, unlatches it violently, and draws out a clean, white tank top. Then he falls to his knees before her.

Carol lets her hands slide weakly from her side, and he presses the balled shirt hard and tight over her wound to try to stem the bleeding. Her eyes begin to roll back into her head.

"Hold on, sweetheart," he murmurs. "Just hold on."

From behind him comes a light _crack_.

When a twig snaps from the hoof of a horse, or from the foot of a deer, or even from a walker, it sounds different than when it snaps beneath the heel of a man's boot. Daryl knows all the snapping sounds, and he knows the crack he just heard means there's a man coming up behind him.

He drops the bloodied shirt he's using to try to stop Carol's bleeding and reaches for his rifle on the ground. As soon as he's gripped it, a black-and-white, spotted, calf-skin cowboy boot comes down hard on top of his hand, so hard that Daryl thinks that heel might snap his fingers like it snapped that twig. The pressure of the heel lets up, ever so slightly, as more twigs snap from behind.

Daryl looks up slowly, first into the barrel of the rifle that's pointed at his head, and then over a metal belt buckle in the shape of a coiled serpent surrounded by the words  _Don't Tread on Me_ , up a brown suede jacket, over a Doc-Holiday-style goatee and mustache, and finally into the coal-gray eyes of the man in the white Stetson.

"I'm going to take my boot off your hand," White Stetson says as his men begin to flank him. One man scoops up Carol's fallen handgun, and a second seizes the crossbow Daryl left behind when he went to investigate. A third takes hold of the reins of Carol's horse and peers into the saddle bags. A fourth crouches down to check the dead man for a pulse and then picks up the attacker's knife. Daryl can feel a fifth man standing directly behind him, likely with a gun pointed to the back of his head. "And when I do, you're going to ever so slowly raise both of your hands and lace them behind your head."

Daryl does what he's told. There's not much else he can do at this point. When his hands are laced behind his head, the man behind him drags him to his feet, and another man pats him down and strips him of his weapons. Daryl's hands are wrenched down, and cool, steel handcuffs click down tightly on his wrists.

White Stetson crouches by Carol, peers at her wound, and then removes her knives from her waist, pats down her pants legs, and finally slides out the knife she keeps concealed in her boot.

"Please," Daryl begs, even though he has no reason to believe these are good men. But the desperation wells up in him. "She's been cut bad. Needs help."

White Stetson stands and looks over Daryl's shoulder. Daryl cranes his neck back to see another man emerging from the foliage and leading Freckles by the reins.

"I got their horse, Sheriff!" the man calls as he approaches.

"'S medical supplies in that saddle pack!" Daryl cries. "Ya can use 'em to stop 'er bleedin'.  _Please_."

"Thomas," White Stetson orders one of his men. "Stop her bleeding. Then bind the wound."

A thirty-something, freckled, auburn-haired man answers, "Yes, Sheriff." He digs in the arriving horse's saddle pack and pulls out gauze, scissors, pads, and tape and goes to work on Carol.

White Stetson – or, Daryl supposes he can say now – the s _herriff_  - examines the scene, his eyes flitting from Carol to Daryl to the fallen body to the horses. Coolly, he says, "Your woman shot my man."

Daryl's gut sinks. He's not sure what kind of vengeance this man might want to exact. Maybe none if he's ordering the patching up of Carol. Or maybe he plans to exact the worst kind of vengeance, and he's only patching her up to take her for a sinister purpose. The thought sends a flash of rage up Daryl's spine.

"He attacked her," the sheriff says calmly. "From behind. With a knife." He paces the scene. "She turned and shot him in the chest." He stops before the fallen man's body. "She denied me the pleasure." He makes a sound as if clearing his throat, and then spits in the dead man's face. Surprised, Daryl steps back.

As the sheriff is looking down at the attacker's chest wound, the dead man's jaw falls open in a low gasp, and his glassy eyes roll up. His hands begin to clutch at the forest earth. The sheriff draws his machete and drives it into the walker's forehead. Then he flicks a flowing blue bandana from his back pocket, and as he cleans the blade, asks, "Johnny, did the horse they stole get away?"

"Sorry, Sheriff," the man who brought in Freckles answers. "I couldn't catch up. But I got this one." He raises the reins of Freckles. "And all the loot on it."

"Jacob," the sheriff orders, "Go look for a camp back there."

A man nods and disappears into the woods behind Carol.

"Why was the other one so far down the highway," Johnny asks, "if they were camped all the way up here? They had to know we were out searching. Why haven't they moved on?"

"Well," the sheriff replies, "I reckon he was looking for buried treasure. You saw him digging at the side of the road before he spied us and fled. Why don't you go ride on back down the road and see just what he was digging up?"

Johnny nods, leaves Freckles with another man, and vanishes toward the road.

The swarthy man standing by Carol's horse has a lustful look in his dark eyes. He licks his lips and says, "We're gonna have us a good time tonight, Sheriff." Daryl thinks he's looking down at Carol, and rage rushes once again from the tip of his head down through every nerve in his body. He's about to do something stupid, like run over and head butt the asshole, when the man yanks a bottle of whiskey out of the saddle pack, and Daryl realizes he was looking down at the liquor instead of at Carol. "They've got more where that came from. Wine, too."

"Don't touch anything," the sheriff orders. "It needs to be inventoried when we get back. You'll get your share when the time comes."

Daryl guesses that means they're being robbed, but he doesn't suppose they're being murdered. At least not _yet_.

"Bleeding's stopped," says the man helping Carol – Thomas, Daryl remembers, because he's silently noting down all these names. "But she's lost a lot of blood. She's lost consciousness, but she's breathing. She needs stitches. Maybe even a blood transfusion."

"Put her on her horse and get her back to the infirmary," the sheriff orders. "On the way, tell Hank to signal the relay. Let them know both fugitives are down now, and we're coming in with two unknowns. One wounded."

"Yes, Sherriff."

Two of the sheriff's men help Carol onto the horse, and Thomas gets on behind her and wraps his arm low around her waist, below her wound. She jerks to sudden consciousness, hissing in pain, and then slumps forward again. Thomas leads the horse through the woods and Daryl feels an angry helplessness whirl in the pit of his stomach.

Behind them, the trees rustle, and the remaining men aim their rifles. When the man who was sent to look for a camp emerges from the brush, they all lower their weapons. He holds up a pack and says, "I found the camp. This is all the gear they had, though it looks like they killed six cannibals last night."

"Take it back and inventory it," the sheriff orders. "All y'all, ride on up ahead. Hank and I will bring in the man."

The sheriff's men disappear, leaving only him and Daryl in the woods. "Don't run off, now," the sheriff warns, and crouches down to rifle through the dead walker's pockets. He pulls out a pocket knife that he just leaves on the ground. Then he pulls out a piece of notepaper, unfolds it, and studies it. He stands, takes Daryl by the elbow and starts leading him through the forest.

There's no sign of Carol or the other men when they get to the road. The flag wielding Hank, and three horses, including Daryl's, are the only ones left. Hank is a blond, scrawny, lightly-tanned man with an effete wisp of a mustache. The sheriff tells him, "Signal back to camp. Have Earl round up Daniel and put him in a cell and assemble a jury." He holds up the note he pulled off the dead man. "The damn fool signed his own name."

_A jury_ , Daryl thinks. These are a people of the law, which is a good sign. But even a people of the law can have one law for the group and another for the foreigner. They can execute one of their own for stealing a horse, and then turn around and rob a man they find in the woods. They can be brutal to strangers, especially if they suspect those strangers might be spies for an enemy.

Hank climbs to the roof of the truck again and starts waving his flag. It takes a long time and Daryl is losing patience. He wants to be with Carol, to find out how she is.

Hank finally comes down from the truck, rolls his flag around the pole, and loads it behind the saddle of his horse.

"I'm taking your horse," the sheriff tells Daryl, "and you're taking mine."

Daryl's not sure why the sheriff is making the switch, unless it's that he doesn't want Daryl to be anywhere near those saddle bags or the potential weapons in them. Or maybe he just doesn't want Daryl on a familiar horse. Maybe he knows he can whistle his own horse to a stop if Daryl tries riding off on it.

The sheriff takes out his handcuff key. "You aren't going to be able to balance well on a horse with those things on behind you. So I'm taking them off. You'll ride between us. You try to ride ahead, or you fall behind, or you try to  _touch_  us, and I'll shoot you faster than a hot knife through butter. Understood?"

Daryl nods. It's not as if he'd run away and leave Carol behind, anyway. As he mounts the sheriff's horse, under the man's watchful eye, he wonders what he's gotten Carol into and what these people will do with them once she's healed. He wants to ask a hundred questions, but decides its best to ride carefully and silently and learn what he can, for now, through open ears.


	11. Jamestown

"I hear there's booze in those saddle bags," Hank says, talking across Daryl to the sheriff as they ride.

"Indeed," the sheriff answers.

"You know what  _that_  means." Hank's face breaks out in a lopsided grin. "Gonna be a party tonight!"

"Gonna be a long line tonight," the sheriff mutters.

"Well," Hank says, "I can wait my turn. I'm a patient man." There's silence for a while, and then Hank says, "There's eight of us, and finders get a sixth of everything, so how much is that per person? One tenth?"

"Less than that."

"I don't know why the captain  _always_  gets a tenth," Hank grumbles. "When he ain't even  _here_."

"Perks of leadership, I suppose," the sheriff replies.

"You should be captain instead of him," Hank complains.

"Careful."

"I ain't the only one who thinks it," Hank mutters beneath his breath.

Daryl wonders who this captain is. He assumed the sheriff was in charge, but apparently he's only in charge of the posse and not the camp.

"What are you gonna do with  _your_  share of the booze?" Hank asks.

"Well, I imagine I'm going to drink it," the sheriff replies.

"That's a damn waste," Hank tells him. "I'll trade it to you for a pack of double As."

The sheriff pushes his Stetson up on his forehead. "I don't think so."

"Two packs?"

"I'll mull it over."

"That's a good trade, Sheriff," Hank insists. "That's a damn good trade."

They ride about a mile and pass a man in a wooden stand with a rifle on his right shoulder, a flag leaned against the rail of the stand, and a telescope in his left hand. He calls down a greeting to the sheriff.

They ride another three miles and pass two different men in watch stands. Each man, like the last, has a rifle, a telescope, and a flag. This is both their lookout and their telegraph, Daryl supposes – one flag man signals to another and so on to spread messages for miles in Morse code.

It's a long ride, and Daryl worries it must have been a hard one for Carol. Eventually, they reach the Jamestown historic site, and someone rolls open an iron gate for them. They ride through the parking lot and dismount outside the entry building. Three teenage boys appear from out of seeming nowhere to take the horses. "Take everything in those saddle bags straight to inventory," the sheriff demands. "Don't touch anything."

"Yes, Sheriff," one of them replies.

The sheriff cuffs Daryl again, with his hands behind his back, and takes him by one arm to lead him through the front door marked Entrance. Hank goes with them. They walk over marbled floors past an information booth and a ticket stand and into a museum. They turn right down a hallway with a blue hall sign that reads "museum offices." The sheriff peers into an empty office. They must have solar power in this building, or at least in this wing of it, because there's an overhead light on in the office. The sheriff sighs and clicks it off, muttering, "Captain can't conserve worth a damn."

"We're gonna end up with brownouts again," Hank agrees. "Not that the rest of us peons will notice, out there in the huts and cabins."

"We'll notice when the storage freezers go out." The sheriff closes the office door and then tugs Daryl back to the left. As they wend their way through the museum, they enter an open area full of bunk beds, like a barracks. Each bed is labeled with a first name. Some of the beds have stuffed animals in them, or kids' clothes hanging off the rails, and Daryl wonders if this is some kind of orphanage. There must be at least eighteen beds.

A kid, about eight years old, rounds the corner, takes a step toward the bunk beds, and freezes. He looks at the sheriff with wide, frightened eyes.

"You're supposed to be in school, Terrence," the sheriff says.

"Yes, sir, Sheriff, sir. I was just running back to get my baseball cards."

"You don't need your baseball cards for school, young man. You need to be paying attention to the headmistress."

"Yes, sir!" Little Terrence takes two steps backward, turns on his heels, and runs.

They continue through the museum, and the whole time Daryl looks around for any sign of an infirmary or of Carol. He wants to ask about her, but he thinks his best bet at the moment is to remain silent and observe.

They come out of the museum into the bright evening sunlight and pass a large, plastic-encased map of the historic Jamestown settlement. They walk past a sea of flags – colonial, British, Virginia, and others - in some kind of garden centerpiece, which has now been planted with herbs, and then down a path alongside a dock where three re-creations of old wooden, colonial ships float. One, called the  _Susan Constant_ , looks like it just returned from an afternoon out on the James River, and nets full of fish are being slung onto the dock.

They walk past a greenhouse tent, a small orchard of fruit trees, and then a farm field where men and women work. Eventually, they reach the old wooden, triangular fence marking the entrance to the re-creation of the historic Jamestown settlement, and the sheriff leads Daryl inside.

The place is full of the sounds of life and labor. Chickens cluck loudly in a wooden chicken coop. Goats bleat as they clamor up and down the ramp of a playhouse. A hammer clanks iron in the old blacksmith's shop. Horses snort and whinny in the stables. Milk squirts into a tin bucket in a barn as a cow moos. The smoky scent of meat drifts from the smokehouse, and a cleaver comes down hard on a table in the old butcher's shop. A woman is drawing water from a well, and another is beating a rug outside of a small, timber-framed, thatch-roofed cabin. There are kids in the one-room schoolhouse, being drilled in math, and kids outside it, having recess, laughing and yelling as they play old style games like horseshoes.

Someone bursts out of a wooden outhouse as they're passing by. Buckling his belt, he says, "Evenin', sheriff. Howdy, Hank." Both men nod and lead Daryl on. When they pass the jail house, Daryl peers inside and sees two iron cells, one of which is currently occupied. The inmate looks at him curiously.

They move beyond the colonial settlement, out an opening in the rear fence, and through to a series of re-created Native American adobes, in which, based on the bedding inside, it appears entire families live. A woman sits on a straw-like bench outside of one, grinding corn with a stone mortar and pestle to make cornmeal. A few yards behind the adobes are a long row of at least a dozen blue port-a-potties, drawn perhaps from construction sites. They make a strange contrast with the ancient huts.

Outside the last of the adobes, which is a long one, stand two women in low-cut dresses. Every other woman in the settlement was wearing practical clothing, and Daryl does a stunned double take. He hasn't seen a woman in a  _dress_  since Negan's harem. They're striking coquettish poses against the outside wall of the hut. "Hey, handsome," one of them calls to Hank. "Word is you found booze."

"We sure did!" Hank replies excitedly. "I should get my cut tonight."

"Well stop by and see me when you do."

The sheriff stops suddenly before the entryway of the hut, which is covered by dangling strings of colorful beads. Daryl almost runs into him, and the sheriff drops the arm he's been holding to lead him.

"You, too, Sheriff," the other woman says. "Why don't you stop by and see me tonight?"

"I doubt my wife would approve," the sheriff replies.

"Honey, you know I can do things your wife  _won't_."

"Fortunately, I'm a man of simple tastes." The sheriff nods toward the beaded doorway. "Is the captain in there by any chance? He wasn't in his office."

The woman parts the beads, ducks her head inside the entry way of the hut, and yells, "Captain! Sheriff here to see you."

She moves out of the way and leans back against the hut. Ten seconds later, the beads part violently. A mountain of a man appears in the doorway, as big as Abraham was, with flashing, hazel eyes and a tight black buzz cut. His bare chest is a thick blanket of dark, curly hair, and his belt is unbuckled and loose over his pants. "Damn it to hell, Garland! What could be so goddamn impor - " He falls silent and looks at Daryl. "Who the hell is this?"

"I sent a relay message," Sheriff Garland replies. "Both fugitives are dead, but we lost the horse they stole."

"Fuck!" the captain roars.

"One of the fugitives wounded a woman. She's in the infirmary. This is her…" He glances at Daryl.

"Husband," Daryl answers. It's what Carol said to say he was, after all, if they ran into people.

"I thought you'd want to question him, Captain."

"Well not  _now_ , man! Put him in a cell. I'll deal with him later."

"I could accompany you when you  _do_  question him," the sheriff suggests.

"No need for that, Garland."

"I appreciate being able to observe your expertise," Sheriff Garland replies.

Daryl watches as Hank – and both women - bite down on smiles.

"Fine, but later. As you can see, I'm  _busy_." The captain looks Daryl up and down suspiciously. "Did he and his wife have any loot on them?"

"Lots of booze," one of the women says. " _Real_  booze. Not moonshine. Or so the rumor mill says."

The captain grins. "Is that so? Well, then, sugar tits, you come on in here, too, and I'll pay you later." He slaps her ass. She squeals and runs into the hut.

"What am I?" the other woman mutters as the captain disappears through the beads. "Chopped liver?"

"I'll keep you company," Hank says and he throws himself back against the hut next to her.

"Not until you've got something to  _pay_  for my company," she tells him, but Hank doesn't budge from his spot.

Sheriff Garland takes Daryl by the arm, turns him around, and starts tugging him back in the direction of the jailhouse.

The men's excitement over the booze makes a lot more sense now. This place has a goddamn  _brothel_ , and the currency seems to be whiskey and wine. Daryl can't help but peer back over his shoulder at the unexpected scene, and the whore who's talking to Hank waves her fingers at him one by one and winks.

[*]

Once they're in the jailhouse, Sheriff Garland undoes Daryl's handcuffs, swings open a cell door, and waves him inside.

Daryl finally asks a question. "Can I see my wife first?"

"Not now. Later."

"How is she?"

"She's in good hands."

"Why're ya lockin' me up?"

"Because we don't  _know_  you. Now get in."

Daryl walks inside the cell, and it clicks shut behind him. The sheriff turns the key in the lock. After Negan, Daryl swore to himself he'd never be put behind bars again, that he would go down fighting instead. But he can't do that, not with Carol in that infirmary, not with a possible life with her outside these bars.

Daryl plops himself down on the bench in the corner of his cell, which has nothing else but a pot to piss in and a bedroll.

The man in the other cell gets up and grips the bars. "Sheriff, when's my trial gonna be?"

The sheriff pauses at the jailhouse door and turns around. "We start in the morning. James will represent you. You should have a verdict by sunset tomorrow."

"What do you think the verdict's gonna be?"

"Well, I reckon it'll be guilty. They're your brothers. And we found the note you passed them with the lock pick wrapped inside. You  _signed_  it, Daniel. With your own  _name_."

"There wasn't a lock pick in that note! I'm innocent!" he exclaims, and then lowers his voice. "If they  _do_  find me guilty, what do you think the sentence's gonna be?"

"Most likely banishment," the sheriff replies. "It's near treason."

"No! No, no…" Daniel shakes his head. "I didn't hurt anyone! They were  _innocent_! My brothers were  _innocent_ , and the jury sentenced them to hang! That woman is a lying slut!"

The sheriff paces back and hisses angrily into the cell: "That  _girl_  is just sixteen years old. I was there when she was examined. She had bruises all over her thighs and neck. She almost died. And her innocence  _did_  die." He draws back. "What's more, you've been smuggling goods out of the storehouse for days and burying them up the road, so your brothers could dig them up when they busted out."

"What, me? Nah! No way!"

"You drew a goddamn map, Daniel! On your note. Johnny's going to find the stash, if he hasn't already."

"I didn't know. I didn't know! They can't banish me! That's a  _death_  sentence! You  _know_  what it's like out there, alone with the cannibals!" Daniel continues to plead with the sheriff as he walks out of the jailhouse. Then the inmate throws himself in defeat down on the bench in his cell.

So  _this_  is the man who was responsible for freeing the man who cut Carol. But Daryl can't let that anger get to him, because he needs to get information. He slides off the bench, walks to the bars that form the barrier between their two cells, and leans against them. "Hey," he hisses, and the inmate looks up. "They picked me up on the outside."

"So?" Daniel asks.

"Sounds like yer gonna be on the outside soon. 'N I got supplies buried out there," Daryl lies. "I can tell you where, if you tell me a few things 'bout this place."

The inmate glances toward the open door of the jailhouse and then back at Daryl. "What do you want to know?"

[*]

 

Daryl learns that the historic Jamestown Settlement was made into an emergency camp shortly after the Outbreak by a group of U.S. Navy men. Most of those men died off in the first year, clearing out what they call here "the cannibals," but Jamestown grew into a permanent camp under the leadership of the beast of a man Daryl met at the whorehouse - Captain John Smith.

"You got to be shittin' me!" Daryl exclaims. "That's really his name?"

"Ironic, huh?" Daniel asks.

That the guy who established this post-apocalyptic settlement has the same name as the guy who established colonial Jamestown? Daryl doesn't know that he'd call it  _ironic_ , but it's a damn weird coincidence.  _Too_  weird. The man probably made up his name, created a persona for himself, like King Ezekiel did.

"How many people ya got here?" Daryl asks.

"Including children? About 600."

 _Damn_. That's the biggest single camp Daryl's ever encountered. The Hilltop, the Kingdom, Alexandria, and Oceanside  _combined_  don't have 600 people.  

"'N what about the sheriff?" Daryl asks. "Is he second in command?"

"Second in line in the hierarchy," Daniel replies. The sheriff, he tells Daryl, used to be a Richmond City Police Department detective. He lost his first camp, wandered alone for months, and then found the Jamestown Settlement four years ago.  

"So they take in strangers here?" Daryl asks.

"After a trial period."

"Trial period?"

"First," Daniel tells him, "they take all your shit."

"Yeah, took mine."

"Whatever group brought you in gets to keep six tenths of your loot. But the captain  _always_  gets a tenth, and three tenths always go to the storeroom for rationing to the community. Same thing for anything scavengers bring in. After they take all your shit, they interrogate you. They want to make sure you aren't dangerous, or that you aren't a spy for another camp that plans to take over. Then, if you pass the interrogation, you're on probation, not allowed to have any weapons for a few months. And if you follow the rules, don't get into trouble, and haul your weight, you get to stay. You get your weapons back and your horse, if you came in with one "

"And if ya just want to leave?" Daryl asks. "Do they give ya yer weapons and horses back 'n let ya go?"

"No one wants to leave."

"But if someone did?"

"If they did, that probably means they're spies from a camp somewhere else, and they'll be coming back with an army."

"'N why would ya think that?"

The inmate looks down at his hands and picks some dirt from beneath his fingernail. "A little over two years ago, they took in this man who came up to the iron gates with nothing but a pack and a rifle. A month later, he asked to leave. He said he just couldn't get used to settled life and a workday and rules. So they gave him his gun back and let him walk out the gates. Three days later, he came back with fifty armed men and women, by night. There was a raid."

A heavy weight settles in Daryl's gut. These people have every reason to distrust strangers. They aren't going to let him and Carol go, are they?

"We responded quickly," Daniel says. "I guess they thought they had the advantage of surprise, but we had numbers. We put them  _all_  down before they could kill more than fifteen of ours. Well, the captain kept one man alive. Tortured him to find out where their camp was, and then sent the sheriff and the cavalry to make sure there weren't more coming after us."

"'N then what?" Daryl asks.

"The sheriff found the camp. There weren't many people left in it. Every able-bodied adult had come out for the raid. They left behind a couple of old people, two pregnant women, and a bunch of children."

"'N what'd yer people do to 'em?"

It's always a question…how to deal with surrendered enemies. Daryl's people had to deal with it when it came to the Saviors. Daryl doesn't fault Oceanside for killing the men who killed their men, but he's not sorry they were able to incorporate some of the Saviors into their camps.

"The sheriff convinced the captain to take them all in to Jamestown."

"'S why ya have that orphanage in the museum?" Daryl asks.

"Yeah. The raid left some orphans of our own, too. We just thought it was easier to house them all together. The whole town looks out for them, and they look out for each other."

Daryl scratches his cheek. "The captain…he didn't want to take 'em in?"

"Not at first. He was afraid the kids were going to grow up and want revenge, or that those two women would seek it. But now…both of those women have married men here. And the kids, well, they like it here. It's better than where they came from. They were going hungry. And some of the men in that camp, they were pretty brutal."

 _Like yer brothers?_  Daryl thinks, but he doesn't dare say it. The thought does lead him to another question: "What kind of things they give the death penalty for here?"

"Rape sometimes. Murder always. And treason."

"Treason?" Daryl asks.

"One of the whores helped let those raiders in, because she fell in love with the spy while he was here. She wanted his people to win, wanted him to become the new captain. She thought she'd be the captain’s wife. She was tried and then executed for treason."

"Y'all don't have elections?" Daryl asks. "The captain's just always the captain?"

"Yeah."

"And he's the one decides everything? Makes all the rules?" Daryl wants to know who will be deiciding his fate, who he has to convince to let them go.

"Well, the hierarchy advises him."

"The sheriff?" Daryl asks.

"And a few others. But the sheriff has the most influence over him."

"How often people get executed?" Daryl wants to know how violent the populace is, if rape, murder, and treason are common occurrences.

"If you count my brothers? Five in the three years I've been here." That's not too terribly many, Daryl thinks, in a camp of 600, in the brutal world they live in. It's three more than the Hilltop has executed in twice that many years, but the Hilltop is a tiny camp by comparison. "I should never have helped my brothers escape. Now I'll be a dead man out there." Daniel looks anxiously at Daryl. "Where'd you bury your stuff?"


	12. The Interrogation

The jailhouse is blanketed in a patchwork quilt of black and gray shadows because the sun has nearly set. Daniel snores in the cell beside him, maybe because there's nothing better to do than sleep. For the last hour, Daryl's paced the short length of his own dirt floor, done fifty push-ups, tested the strength of the bars with shaking, even tried to use the prong of his belt to pick the lock – not because he's going to escape, but because he just wants to know if he  _can_.

He can't.

He puts his belt back on and sits down on the bench with a sigh. Three minutes later, a lantern glows in the shadowy doorway. A man enters and sets the lantern on the small wooden desk in the jailhouse, along with a tin plate covered in food. It's Sheriff Garland, but without his Stetson hat this time. His wavy brown hair is thick against his brow, and without the white hat, in the light of the oil lamp, his eyes look a little more blue than gray. "When did you last eat?" he asks Daryl.

"'Round noon."

"I brought you a little something." Sheriff Garland opens Daryl's cell door and extends him the plate. It's topped with a handful of raw spinach, a small piece of cornbread, and a two-ounce filet of lukewarm fish. Daryl devours it greedily with his hands. He wonders if Carol's been fed, if she got the same thing, or if they fed her more because of all the blood she lost.

Daniel has stirred awake. "What about me?"

"Earl will bring you your super shortly." Sheriff Garland extends a tin cup of water to Daryl, which he downs.

"Since it's my last meal," Daniel asks, "can I have something nice?"

"It's not your last meal. You'll have plenty of meals on the outside, if you're smart."

When Daryl's done eating, the sheriff orders him to stand, turn around, and put his hands behind his back. Daryl complies and feels the cuffs tighten onto his wrists.

"Can I see m'wife?" he asks as the sheriff takes hold of the oil lamp on the desk.

"Not now. Later."

"'S what you said the last time."

The sheriff doesn't reply. Instead, he leads Daryl by lantern light out the jailhouse door. The sky glows dark purple in the wake of the setting sun. The blacksmith's shop is silent, the butcher gone, and the school house empty. Smoke puffs through chimneys in the cabins they pass, and he can hear live music drifting through the open window of one – guitar and violin.

"How is she?" Daryl asks. "M'wife?"

"She's in good hands."

Daryl's starting to worry about the lack of information. What if Carol's dead, and they just aren't telling him because they want him to believe his cooperation is keeping her alive?

They pass a cabin where a small boy half hangs out the open window. His skin is the same light black shade as RJ's back in Alexandria, and he can't be much more than two. "Hi, Daddy!" he shouts.

"What are you standing on?" the sheriff calls back.

"Nufffing!" the toddler cries proudly.

"How'd you climb up there?"

"Wocking chair!"

"Where's Grandmama?"

The boy's face disappears from the window and is replaced by that of an old lady. "I've got him, Garland!"

The sheriff sighs and walks on.

Outside the old settlement fence, the fields they pass are vacant, and the ships sit by the dock, swaying gently as the water laps. Candles flicker in the windows of the cabins of all three ships, and an oil lamp glows on the deck of one, the  _Godspeed_ , where five men sit playing cards at a wooden table.

"Evenin', Sheriff!" one of them calls down. "Join us for some poker later?"

"Don't think so. Not tonight."

"I was hoping you'd bet me some of that whiskey we heard you and the posse scored."

The sheriff waves over his shoulder and walks on without further comment.

"Where we goin'?" Daryl ventures to ask.

"To see the captain," the sheriff replies.

The interrogation, Daryl supposes, is about to begin.

[*]

When they walk through the museum, the orphans are in their beds. Electric lamps glow on three nightstands. A faint wisp of electric heat floats from the ceiling. It feels about sixty-five degrees in here, instead of the nighttime fifty it is outside. Daryl wonders if there's power in the entire museum.

The youngest children are already asleep beneath their covers. Two of the older ones sit cross-legged on a top bunk playing checkers, and they're passing back and forth one of Daryl and Carol's giant pixie sticks. Three more empty, colorful straws rest in a trashcan. "Hey, my turn!" says a boy in the bunk below them, who slides out of bed and reaches up for the straw.

Two more kids lie stomach down on their beds flipping through comic books. A boy, who looks to be about thirteen, quickly tucks a  _Playboy_  magazine under his pillow as they pass by his bunk.

Sheriff Garland stops walking. "You kids were supposed to save that candy for tomorrow."

"Sorry, sir," one of the kids says.

"Did the little ones who are asleep even get any?"

"It'll just rot their teeth," replies one of the checker-playing boys.

"Is Nanny gone?"

"She turned in," the boy who hid the  _Playboy_  answers.

"See the lights are out in half an hour, then."

"Yes, sir."

Little Terrence is on his bed with his baseball cards neatly spread out, as if he's organizing them. "Sheriff," he asks as they pass, his voice small and quiet. "Did you tell the captain? About me skipping school again this morning?"

Sheriff Garland chuckles. "No, young man, I did not. But I assure you the captain doesn't care about those kinds of trivial infractions."

Relief washes over the young boy's face.

"School is for your own good, you know," the sheriff tells him.

"Yes, sir."

They exit the room, walk through a darkened area of the museum, and then toward a light in the "museum offices" hallway. The captain sits at his desk now, with Daryl's bottle of whiskey opened and an ounce poured in a glass.

Garland walks Daryl in and forces him to sit down in the chair across from the captain's desk. Daryl has to sit forward slightly so he doesn't lean back against his cuffed hands.

Garland closes the door and sits in the chair next to Daryl's. A white-and-black, U.S. Navy dress service cap rests atop a haphazard stack of files on the desk. The captain, who somehow looks like an even bigger man when sitting, picks up the whiskey bottle and pours an ounce into a second, empty glass. He pushes the glass across the desk to Sheriff Garland, who thanks him and picks it up. "Cheers on your find, Gar," the captain says, raising his glass, "even if you lost the horse."

Garland clinks his glass, sips, and hisses.

"But this is  _all_  we're drinking," the captain insists, pointing with one finger to the bottle. "Because that's at least two blow jobs, three titty fucks, and one good pussy pounding right there." He lets out a bark of a laugh.

Garland looks slightly annoyed and says, "You ever feel like you're taking advantage of their addiction?"

A scowl darkens the captain's face. "I  _feel_  like I'm allowing them to serve a productive role in our society."

"Productive?"

"Very productive, Gar. Men outnumber women three to one at Jamestown, and they get restless if they can't find an outlet. And restless men do desperate things. We can't all be so lucky as to find ourselves a war bride."

_War bride?_  Daryl's mind churns around the term. If he'd heard it before talking to that inmate, he might think Jamestown raided other camps and took the women as unwilling captives. But that doesn't seem likely to him, given that they execute for rape. The sheriff's "war bride" is most likely one of the two pregnant women who was left behind in the camp that raided Jamestown, which would explain why the boy who called him  _daddy_  looked nothing like him.

"Do you ever feel you're taking advantage of  _her_?" the captain asks.

"Of my  _wife_?" replies the sheriff, with a sharp edge to his voice.

"Well, why do you think she married you, Gar?" A low chuckle rumbles in the captain's throat. "For  _love_? She was pregnant, and she needed a provider for her child, for herself, and for that old, nagging mother of hers. She was in a new place, and she was frightened, and she wanted the nice sheriff to protect her. It's just a different kind of prostitution."

Out of the corner of his eye, Daryl watches the sheriff's reaction. A line jumps in the man's jaw, and his eyes darken just enough that the last of the blue seems to vanish from the gray. But he remains silent.

"Besides," the captain continues, "those ladies in the brothel are free to stop offering their services anytime and to go to work farming in the fields or cleaning fish on the docks. But they don't  _want_  to. Now  _that's_  dirty work!" The captain laughs again, like a thunderclap. "Hell, Gar, don't you wish  _you_  could make a living fucking? I sure as shit do."

Garland takes another small, silent sip of his whiskey.

The captain finally focuses his attention on Daryl. "Where are you from?" His voice is friendly, almost jovial. It has a natural rumble to it, but not the intimidating boom Daryl expected from an interrogation.

"Ain't from nowhere."

"Where's your permanent camp?"

Daryl sticks to the story he and Carol agreed they would tell if they ever ran into strangers. "Don't have no permanent camp. Just been wanderin'."

"Why didn't you have any camping gear, then?" the captain asks. "Tents?"

"Got sleepin' bags. 'S all we need. Find places to stay."

"For how long have you been wandering?"

"Since the start."

"Where'd you find the booze?"

"In houses," Daryl answers. "In a winery. And 'n a bar."

The captain looks at Garland. "I saw where the wine was from. On the label. I thought to look it up on a map." He taps a finger on his forehead and smiles as though proud of his ingenuity. "That winery is over two hundred miles from here. Too far for some supply runner or spy to bother traveling in this day and age. He might be telling the truth."

Sheriff Garland sips his whiskey slowly, and Daryl thinks maybe they're going to buy his not-from-anywhere story. But then the sheriff lowers his glass to his knee, and without even looking at Daryl, coolly asks, "How do you have horses that are so well shoed, so  _freshly_  shoed?"

_Oh shit._

"It looks like they've been shoed within the last three weeks," Sheriff Garland finally turns his gray eyes to Daryl. "If you don't have a camp, and you don't have a blacksmith, how on earth did you manage that?"

"Grew up on a farm," Daryl lies. "Know how to shoe a damn horse. Can find horses shoes lyin' round barns easy."

"And do you know how to tan leather, too?" Sheriff Garland asks. "Because one of your saddles was at least a decade old, but the other one looks like it was handmade sometime in the last four years."

"I can tan leather," Daryl says, and that, at least, is not a lie. "Can hunt. Tan a hide. Tan any damn thing."

"And stich saddle bags, too, I suppose," Garland says casually, before taking another small sip of his whiskey. He sets the glass again on his knee. "With an electric sewing machine. A sewing machine that did not appear to be anywhere among your supplies."

Carol made those saddle bags in the Kingdom, using one of the three sewing machines in their seamstress shop. "Looted them bags from a store," Daryl lies.

"A store that sews together saddle bags using old quilts?" Garland asks skeptically.

Daryl shrugs. "Ya know. That novelty shit they sell in them old town stores."

"One of those boutiques," the captain says, nodding and raising his glass, "where everything costs five times as much as it should."

"Yeah," Daryl agrees. "'Zactly."

"It's plausible." The captain turns his hazel eyes from Daryl to Garland. "Don't you think?"

"No."

Daryl can't figure out if they're playing good cop / bad cop or if the captain is just that much less perceptive than the sheriff.

"You think he's lying?" the captain asks.

"Oh, I  _know_  he's lying," Garland replies.

The calm, self-assured way Garland says that rattles Daryl's resolve more than a punch in the face could have. "Look," Daryl says, because he's sure there's no way he's going to be able to convince the sheriff he didn't come out of  _some_  camp recently, "A'ight. Was in a camp once. In Charlottesville. At Monticello. But we ain't in that camp no more. Left three weeks ago 'cause food was runnin' out and people was getting' sick. 'N we shoed the horses 'fore we left."

When the lie is out, Daryl senses he's just dug a deeper hole than the one he was trying to climb out of. He never should have said a word. When they question Carol, she's going to have to play along with a lie she didn't even know he told. Maybe they already  _have_  questioned Carol. Maybe that's why the sheriff left him in that cell for so long and wouldn't tell him anything. And maybe when they questioned her, she told them a different story.

What has he done?

The captain, with his elbows on the desk, leans his massive frame forward. He raises one bushy, black eyebrow. "Then why did you lie and tell us you weren't from a camp?"

"'Cause I don't want ya raidin' Monticello."

"We don't  _raid_  camps," the captain says indignantly. "I run an honorable operation here! And we certainly aren't bothering to travel that damn far." He sits back and looks at Garland. "He could be telling the truth. He sure doesn't  _look_  like he's been living in a camp recently. He looks like he hasn't had a bath in weeks."

Daryl just washed up in the creek two days ago. Why's everyone always saying he looks like he never bathes? But at least it's working to his advantage here. They just might buy his revised story after all.

Sheriff Garland quietly finishes his last sip of whiskey. "No," he says as he sets his empty glass down with a light clink on the metal office desk. "Their camp isn't in Monticello. It's near Washington, D.C."

_Shit._

_How the fuck does he know that?_

_If he hurt Carol to get that information…if he so much as laid a finger on her –_

"How the fuck do you know that?" the captain asks.

Garland opens his light brown, suede vest, reaches into an inside pocket, and pulls out Carol's map, the one she's been using to plot their journey. But they didn't  _mark_  those maps. It's not as if they circled their camp on it.

"They've been tracing their route on this map with their fingertips," Garland says. "I was able to pick up the residue by dusting with cocoa powder. It made a rather distinct line." He spreads open the map to reveal their routes plotted out in dark black ink.

"That doesn't look like cocoa powder," the captain says.

Garland closes his eyes briefly, and then opens them. "No, John. That's ink from a fountain pen. After I saw the routes, I brushed off the powder and marked them."

"Oh."

That's when Daryl decides it isn't a routine. The captain is just that dense. Daryl has trouble believing he ever got promoted to the rank of captain in the U.S. Navy and again wonders if he created his own backstory.

"You've come a long way," Garland tells Daryl. "And we want to know why. Just tell us the truth, if you want us to trust you, if you seek peace with us."

And what if Daryl  _does_  tell the truth? Tells them that he and Carol were…what?  _On vacation_? That they left a safe and well-defended home and travelled hundreds of miles in search of Carol's family roots? If they think he's lying  _now_ , they sure as hell are going to think he's lying when he tells the truth.

Unfortunately, the truth may be the only card he has left to play. So Daryl plays it. He doesn't mention the Hilltop, Alexandria, or Oceanside, and he doesn't offer any details about the Kingdom, but he gives a basic outline of the truth. He tells them his camp knows nothing about Jamestown and would not mean it any harm if they did. He and Carol were only coming here, Daryl assures them, to trace Carol's family roots, to find out about her great-great-great grandfather, who was presumably one of the original inhabitants of colonial Jamestown.

And when the card is played, Daryl steadies himself. His muscles tighten in preparation for his captor's response, and he slowly raises his eyes to the captain's.


	13. The Infirmary

 

The captain's belly shakes. The man laughs so hard his face has begun to turn reddish-blue. He sucks in breaths between great bursts of laughter. Sheriff Garland doesn't even crack a smile. He's just been looking silently at Daryl this entire time.

The captain's laugh trails off into a titter. "Do you believe this bullshit, Gar!" he shouts. "Do you believe this web of nonsense this asshole's spinning?"

"Possibly."

The captain coughs. One last laugh splutters out his mouth, and then he asks. "What?"

"I think I might," Garland says.

"But it's absurd!" the captain roars.

"Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction," Garland replies. "And it's the only thing that makes sense of all the evidence. It's clear they  _have_  an established camp, given the nature of the horse shoes and the saddle and the saddle bag. It's clear they've been on some kind of road trip, based on the map and the things in their saddle bags. There was a brochure for a historical house in Dumfries. Souvenirs from Monticello. A grave rubbing from a tombstone in Staunton and even a page torn out of a ledger of names of wounded Civil War soldiers. Maybe she really  _is_  tracing her roots."

"Who the fuck does such a thing!" the captain laugh-yells. "Leaves the safety of walls and gardens for a road trip to research some long dead  _ancestors_?"

Garland looks Daryl up and down. "A man who's in love, I imagine. But why  _she_  wanted to do it is a mystery to me."

"Remarkable," the captain says, and claps his hands together and laughs. "Abso-fucking-loutely remarkable!" The captain slams the desk excitedly with his fist, and a pencil rolls off its edge onto the floor. "Good Lord, Gar! He must have wanted to get laid something awful to follow a woman hundreds of miles in search of her  _roots_. Especially when a man can always find a way to buy it."

Garland sighs. "Not every man  _wants_  to buy it, John."

"They're a lot of trouble if you ask me. Wives and girlfriends. Can't imagine why any man would want one. They're always…" The captain moves his hand open and closed, open and closed, "Jibber jabbing. Nagging. Wanting flowers. Asking you to take them on road trips!" he roars. "Ahhhhhh Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!" He pounds out the last of his laughter on the desk with his fist. Then he turns to Garland. "What's she look like? Have you seen her? She must have huge tits. What is she, late twenties?"

Daryl's muscles wind like coils.

"She's his age," Garland says, and Daryl's anger at the captain is partially supplanted by his relief that the sheriff is using the  _present tense_  to speak of Carol. "Maybe a little older. Not unattractive." Not unattractive? Daryl thinks. Carol's  _beautiful_.

There's a knock on the closed office door, and the captain raises one hand and waves it in a  _come-in_  gesture. The door swings open, and a man with a rifle on his shoulder pops his head in. "Sheriff," he says, "may I speak to you for a moment?"

The sheriff rises and vanishes into the hallway and the door clicks shut.

The captain pours himself another ounce of whiskey and raises the glass. "I guess I can have just one more," he tells Daryl. "I suppose I'll just have to rub this one out myself." He throws the whiskey back, drinking half of it down with a hiss, and then sets the glass on the desk and pounds his chest.  

Daryl eyes him warily, wondering how a man so crass and stupid got to be in charge of this place. Are they intimidated by his sheer size and brute strength? Or is he just innocuous enough and easily enough led that no one bothers to try to supplant him? To avoid a conflict, does the sheriff just let the captain  _think_  he's in charge?

The sheriff pokes his head back in the door. "Do you know your blood type?" he asks Daryl.

"No. Why?"

"Because I'm getting tired of my wife being milked."

"What?" Daryl asks.

"Come with me." The sheriff walks in and pulls him up from the chair.

"Where do you think you're taking him?" the captain asks.

"I know you're going to be busy tonight," Garland says as he gestures to the whiskey bottle. "I figured I'd take him off your hands. I thought we could confer about what to do with the foreigners in the morning?"

"Good, good," the captain says. "But not before ten a.m. Don't wake me before ten!"

"Yes, Captain."

Garland leads Daryl down the hallway. They pass a breakroom, which also has an overhead light on. Several small kitchen appliances litter the counter, including a toaster oven, a crockpot, and an electric kettle. The faint hum of a refrigerator reaches Daryl's ears as Garland drags him inside to turn the overhead light off. In the darkness that follows, the light on a coffee maker glows red.  

Then they near the man who popped his head in the captain's office. He sits in a chair in the hallway, with his rifle across his knees, as if standing guard. Across from him is an open doorway. A blue sign with a red cross protrudes from the wall. The museum apparently had a nurse's office in case visitors or employees were injured.

When they walk in the lit room, and Daryl sees Carol, his heart thuds. She lies on one of two beds, with a sheet and blanket pulled to her waist. She's been stripped of her shirt, but not her bra. Her eyes are closed, and she looks so pale and weak that Daryl's breath catches. A fresh bandage covers her side where she was cut, and a blood-filled tube runs from a vein in one of her arms to a bag on a stand. Another tube runs from that bag to a vein in the arm of another woman, who is half sitting up in the second bed near Carol's. This woman is probably in her early thirties, with curly red hair and bright green eyes.

"'S wrong with m'wife?" Daryl asks anxiously.

A dark-skinned man who can't be more than five foot five, and who wears a white lab coat, turns from squeezing drops of something into a tray on the counter. "I'm Dr. Ahmad," he says. "Do you know your blood type?"

Daryl shakes his head. "'S wrong with her?" he asks again.

"She was stabbed," the doctor replies impatiently.

"Know, but…why's she all hooked up?" It's been at least two hours since they got here.

"She lost a lot of blood," Dr. Ahmad replies. "Her wound started bleeding again on the ride here. We had to stop the bleeding, clean the wound, stitch her up, blood type her, and then go around asking people if they were a match." He gestures to the redheaded woman. "Shannon's been at this for a while now."

"I'm O negative," the pretty redheaded says. "Universal donor. I can give blood to anyone."

"Thank ya," Daryl tells her. "Thank ya for doin' this for 'er."

"Not a problem, sugar. What's your name?"

"Daryl."

"I'm Shannon. I suppose you've met my husband Garland?"

Daryl glances at Garland, who has leaned back against the window of the office and crossed his arms over his chest.

"But she probably shouldn't give any more," Dr. Ahmad says as he walks over and begins capping off the tubes. "Not tonight. So we need someone else with either A negative or O negative blood." He slides the needle from Shannon's arm. "We'll type you and see if you're a match." He gives Shannon a cotton ball and tells her to hold her arm up for a moment. "Do you have any STDs?" he asks Daryl. "HIV, syphilis – "

"- Nah, no."

"Have you ever had sex with a man?"

"Hell no!"

"Prostitutes?" the doctor asks.

Daryl swallows. He's not quite sure how to answer that. Merle paid that woman he lost his virginity to, but Daryl didn't know his brother had done that. He feels hot in the face, ashamed, and afraid of being unable to help Carol.

"In the last fifteen years?" the doctor clarifies.

"Nah. No."

"Hold out your arms."

Garland steps forward, undoes Daryl's handcuffs, and then returns to his spot against the window. The doctor examines Daryl's arms.

"What ya lookin' for?" Daryl asks.

"Track marks."

"Never did that shit."

The doctor continues to ask him questions while he wraps a bandage around Shannon's arm. Then he walks back over to Daryl and says, "Give me your index finger."

Daryl holds out his finger, and the doctor pricks it with some sharp tool. He then guides Daryl over to the counter, turns his finger, and squeezes a drop of blood into each of several circles of liquid on a tray.

"This'll tell m' blood type?" Daryl asks.

"Yes."

"How soon?"

"Ten to twenty minutes," the doctor answers.

"What happens if I ain't got the right kind?" Daryl asks nervously after the doctor finishes squeezing a drop into the last circle and hands him a small piece of gauze to hold on his fingertip.

"Well, this is our last kit," the doctor says. "We can't type anyone else."

"So what happens, then, if I ain't a match?" Daryl asks frantically.

"Then I'll drink some more juice," Shannon says, "and eat a slice of my mother's fine strawberry cobbler. I'll rest an hour, and then Dr. Ahmad will hook me right up again."

"You've given a lot already, Shannon," Garland says. "The doctor doesn't advise that."

"Baby," she says, "it's self-replenishing. What's the worse that happens? I faint?"

"Is there really no one else on record with either A negative or O negative?" Garland asks.

"Thomas went and asked everyone he could find," Shannon replies. "Most of them don't know their type, and those that did weren't a match. Now, the  _captain_  has O negative, but with all the whoring he does, you know we don't want  _him_  doing  _this_."

Dr. Ahmad switches out an empty bag on the stand, which has a tube leading to Carol's other arm, with another bag of clear liquid.

"'S that?" Daryl asks.

"Saline drip. Since she can't drink anything right now. It will hydrate her and expand the volume of blood briefly." The doctor walks over to check on the blood type test.

Daryl looks across Shannon's bed to Carol.

"You can go give your wife a kiss, honey," Shannon says. "Don't be shy."

Daryl glances at Garland, to make sure a move won't be taken as a threat, and the sheriff nods, so he walks around the back of Shannon's bed and then between them until he's at the top of Carol's bed. He bends down and kisses her forehead. Her brow feels slick with sweat and slightly warm. "She's just sleepin'?" he asks.

"I gave her a mild sedative," the doctor says. "It knocked her out, but it's for the best."

Daryl starts to pull the blanket up over Carol to her neck, to warm her and give her some dignity since they've taken off her shirt, and that's when he notices she's only in her underwear below, too.

"Why ya take her pants off?" He tries not bark the question, but maybe he does, because the doctor looks affronted.

"Because blood seeped all over them," the doctor says defensively. "And down inside them. We had to clean her up."

"Mhmh," Daryl murmurs apologetically.

"Why don't you pull up a chair," Shannon suggests. "Garland, baby, get Daryl a chair so he can sit next to his wife."

Garland looks at her curiously, but he does bring over a chair for Daryl, which he places between Shannon's bed and Carol's. Shannon swivels out of her bed and attempts to stand, but swoons. Garland catches her by the arms as her knees buckle. "Don't try to get up so soon," the sheriff mutters and helps her back into bed. "I guess we're not splitting that bottle of wine tonight."

"Well, maybe we should," Shannon replies. "With so little blood in me to soak it up, you just might get lucky for a change."

The sheriff doesn't look amused by her joke. He turns to the doctor. "Is there juice for her?"

"In a travel mug in the fridge in the breakroom. It should be defrosted by now."

Garland leaves to get it and Shannon asks Daryl, "What's your wife's name?"

"Carol."

"Carol. I had a sister named Carol. How long have you two been together?"

"Uh…"

"Married, I mean?"

Carol said to say they were married. She didn't say how long. He smooths his fingers gently over Carol's brow. "Hard to tell."

"Ah, one of those apocalyptic marriages. They just kind of happen. One day you're just surviving together, and the next you're married, and you're not quite sure when it happened. That's how it went with my second husband. Garland's number three. But they say the third time's a charm."

She falls silent for a while and Garland eventually returns with the juice. Shannon sips from the mug. "See," she tells her husband. "I get an extra treat for my trouble." She turns toward Daryl. "You're wife's going to be just fine. Garland survived a knife wound once, didn't you, baby?"

"Mhm," Garland murmurs.

"One of my people gave it to him when they tried to take over this place," she continues, "but he didn't hold that against me. Somehow he fell in love with me anyway." She glances at Daryl. "It probably sounds strange to you, doesn't it, a man falling in love with a woman from a warring camp?"

"Pffft. Nah. Seen it happen a time or two."

"Why? Did your camp ever go to war and take in the surrendered?"

Shannon asks the question so innocently that Daryl replies without thinking, "Yeah, each community took in some."

_Shit._  As soon as the words are out he realizes his mistake.

"Each community?" Shannon asks just as innocently. "How big is your alliance?"

_Shit._

Negan starved him for days in that cell, stripped him naked, tortured him with music, and still couldn't break him, couldn't get him to say one desired word. And then this smooth sheriff and his cheerful wife drag all this information out of him in under thirty minutes?  _How the hell did he let that happen?_

Daryl keeps his lips tightly closed.

"Well, I suppose you're like Garland," says Shannon. "A man of few words."

Daryl's cursing himself for his stupidity when Dr. Ahmad says, "The results are in."


	14. Carol's Interview

"What'm I?" Daryl asks anxiously.

"Congratulations!" the doctor replies. "You're A negative. Let's hook you up."

"I guess that's my cue to get out of this bed." Shannon swivels one leg out.

"Stay there!" Garland orders her. He goes to the corner of the room and picks up a folded wheelchair, which he flops open and rolls to her.

"Oh, you're not putting me in that," Shannon insists.

"Would you prefer I carry you over my shoulder like a caveman? Because God knows you aren't walking all the way back to our cabin."

"Oh fine. I'll use the damn wheelchair."

Garland helps his wife into the wheelchair and, as he leaves, reminds Daryl, "There's an armed guard just outside this door. I'll be back as soon as I get her settled."

**[*]**

Blood flows from Daryl's vein into a bag and then into Carol's vein. "Think it's stuck," Daryl says.

The doctor comes over, fiddles with the tubes, and the blood starts flowing again.

Carol stirs a few minutes later when the doctor removes the needle from her arm and wraps a bandage around the insertion point. She looks frantically around, until her eyes settle on Daryl and relief and recognition seep into them.

When the doctor goes over to the medicine cabinet to get something, Daryl slips out of bed, puts a hand on her shoulder, leans down, and frantically whispers, "They found out we come from near D.C. and got more'n one camp. Told 'em we's married. Told 'em we left to trace yer roots. Told 'em our people ain't interested in their camp." He wants to make sure they have their stories straight.

He pulls abruptly away when the doctor returns to Carol's bedside. Daryl doesn't feel at all dizzy, unlike that other woman, but maybe the doc took less blood from him, or maybe it's just because Shannon was petite, like Carol. Or maybe she was just playing the frail woman to earn Daryl's sympathy and get him to say more.

After the doctor shines a light in Carol's eyes, checks her temperature, asks her a few questions to judge her mental with-it-ness, and removes her saline drip, he leaves to go fetch her some apple juice and some food.

"Guard right outside the door," Daryl whispers as soon as the doctor's gone. "Probably can't hear us from here."

Carol takes this opportunity to ask, in a low voice, hastily, "Where are we and what do you know?"

Daryl speaks hurriedly, in short staccato fragments, to convey as much as he can as quickly as he can. "Jamestown. 600 people. Captain's in charge in name. Think Sheriff might  _really_  be in charge. Man ya killed was an escaped fugitive. Rapist. Sheriff was after 'em. Ain't upset he's dead. Had to tell them half the truth. Now they know we're from D.C. 'n there's at least two camps, but 's all they know. Sorry." He feels guilty for saying too much to the sheriff and his wife and thinks Carol wouldn't have slipped up so easily. Daryl can withstand a beating, but Carol's better with subtle stuff.

"This sheriff," she asks. "What's your read?"

"Seems honorable, but he's a smart fucker. Can't slip one by 'em. His wife, too, the one gave ya her blood 'fore I did." Carol glances up at the empty blood bags. "Ya lost a lot. Her name's Shannon. Be careful what ya say 'round either of 'em."

"And the captain?"

"Dumb ass."

"600?"

Daryl nods.

"How many warriors?"

"Dunno. Posse had eight men. Saw a couple armed watchmen in stands spread out 'long the highway. Use a flag relay to communicate. Seen two guards at the front gate, a patrolman wanderin' the settlement, 'n that guard in the hallway. But I'm sure there's lots more could fight. Jamestown put down a raid of fifty men a couple years ago. Sneak night attack, led by someone they took in 'n later let go. He had inside help from a whore slippin' in."

"A whore?" asks Carol.

"Got a brothel here," he explains.

"You're kidding?"

"'Cause of that raid, they're wary of people who show up 'n later wanna leave."

"How'd you learn all this?"

"From m' cell mate. They had me locked up."

"Did they hurt you?" she asks with alarm, and then lowers her voice back to a whisper when he answers no. "How heavily armed are they?"

"Ain't seen a single working man or woman without knives or machetes. Lots have handguns on their belts, too. Wouldn't be surprised if everyone's got a rifle back in their rooms."

"And what do you think they'll do with us?" Carol asks.

"Don't think they're gonna hurt us if we don't try to hurt no one. But don't know if they believe the whole tracin' yer roots story yet. Cap’n doesn't. Sherriff mostly does. Might need to lay low 'til - " He falls silent because the doctor's back.

Dr. Ahmad has brought Carol a tray with apple juice, water, a large piece of cornbread, and several strawberries. "Help her sit up slowly," he tells Daryl, who does after fiddling with the raiseable bed. Carol swoons for a moment as she tries to get in a sitting position. "Eat and drink slowly," the doctor insists. "And stop if you feel nauseous."

"Thank you," Carol says. "For your help, thank you."

"It's my job," the doctor replies.

Daryl sits in the chair beside Carol while she eats, with a hand resting on the blanket that covers her knee. They don't say anything else because the doctor is within ear shot, at least not anything important. Carol says, "This cornbread is good. Do they grow corn here?"

"Three acres of it," the doctor replies, which makes it clear to them that he can hear every word. "And the strawberries were plentiful this year."

By the time the doctor takes Carol's tray away, Sheriff Garland has returned. He glances at Carol, reaches up to tip his hat to her, and then seems to realize he's not wearing it. "Glad to see you conscious, ma'am. I'm Sheriff Garland Taylor. And you're….?"

"Carol Dixon."

Her unexpected use of his name sets the nerves in Daryl's fingertips to tingling. He's not sure why he likes the sound of it on her so much. It's never been a name he's been proud of, but she says it almost like it  _is_  something to be proud of. Of course she's just playing. They aren't really married.

"Daryl told me your wife donated her blood to me," Carol continues. "Would you please tell her thank you for me?"

"I will indeed, ma'am." The sheriff slides his handcuffs off his belt and motions to Daryl. "Stand up and turn around."

"We really got to do the cuffs?" Daryl asks. "I ain't tried to hurt no one."

"It's protocol when leading an uncleared foreigner through the settlement."

"What's an  _uncleared_  foreigner?" Carol asks in that sweet, clueless voice she used in Alexandria.

"Someone we've not yet approved for probationary admission."

Carol lays a hand on the blanket that covers her stomach. "Probationary admission? That's such a big word. I'm sorry I don't know what that means."

"It's a four-month trial period, before an individual can be granted full admission to the community."

"Full - "

"- Full admission means you get your horses and weapons back, you're allowed to scavenge and work on the outside."

Carol barely looks at Daryl, but she turns her eyes just enough that he can guess what she's thinking. If worst comes to worse, they ought to find a way to gain full admission. Because then one day, when they're working on "the outside," they can just slip away home.

The sheriff swirls his finger to indicate Daryl should turn around, and he complies and feels the cool steel of the cuffs on his wrist.

"Where are you taking him?" Carol asks with feigned fright, because she already knows they've had him in a cell.

"Back to his cell. Uncleared foreigners have to be kept apart. I'm sorry, ma'am, but it's protocol."

"Can't he  _please_  just stay here tonight?" Carol asks softly. "There's another bed, and I get so scared alone at night." She's putting on the innocent housewife routine that worked so well in Alexandria.

It doesn't work on the sheriff. "Ma'am, you just traveled three hundred miles on horseback through a landscape riddled with cannibals. You survived a very ugly stab wound, and you successfully killed a man while you were bleeding out. I don't believe for one second you get scared at night."

Carol sighs through her nose. "Can I at least see him in the morning?"

"I'll bring him back for breakfast," the sheriff assures her.

Daryl, with his hands cuffed behind his back, bends down to kiss Carol on the lips. She's responds for a moment, and then puts a fingertip on his chin to tilt his head so she can press her lips against his ear. She kisses him there as an excuse to whisper, and he thinks she's going to whisper some warning about their situation, but instead she whispers, "I love you, too."

[*]

The iron door of the cell squeals shut, and the key clicks in the lock.

"She didn't marry ya just to provide 'n protect," Daryl says as the sheriff walks away.

Garland turns back. "What now?"

"Yer wife. Captain’s full of shit. What he said back 'n that office, 'bout why she married ya. Ain't true. Plain as day she loves ya." He's hoping to ingratiate himself with this man, because he's the one most likely to be gracious with them.

"No, the captain's right. She married me because she was frightened and pregnant, and I offered to take care of her and the baby and her mother. I wanted sex and help around the house. She wanted security. And that's all our marriage was at first, a mutually beneficial exchange. But that's not all it is now." Garland hangs the cell keys on a hook by the jailhouse entryway. "Get some sleep. I'll be back in the morning to take you to have breakfast with your woman."

"Ya gonna question her now?" Daryl asks.

"Yes."

"Man, let 'er rest."

"I'm talking to her before you do." The sheriff doesn't know they were left alone by the doctor long enough to talk already. "I won't hurt her, though. But I think you've figured that out by now."

Before the sheriff can turn, Daniel throws himself on the iron bars of his cell and pleads, "Put in a good word for me, Sheriff? At my trial tomorrow? Be a character witness?"

"Problem is, Danny, I've  _witnessed_  your character."

"You know I ain't never hurt no one!"

"You stole from the community. You helped two violent rapists to escape. And one of them nearly killed this man's wife." Garland points to Daryl. "So yes, you  _have_  hurt someone." The sheriff's walks out.

The jailhouse is almost pitch black, except for the starlight filtering through the open door.

"That true, what he said?" Daniel asks.

"That my wife nearly died 'cause ya let yer brothers go? Yeah."

"You didn't really bury any supplies out there, did you?"

"Nah," Daryl answers.

"Awww FUCK!" Daniel slams his fist against the iron bars connecting their cage. "Fuck!" He grips the bars and begins shaking them. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" The bars rattle in tune with his cries. "I'm gonna die out there now!" Daniel abruptly lets the bars go, plops down on his bench, and buries his hands in his hair.

Daryl picks up his sleeping bag and moves it as far away from their shared cell bars as he can. He spreads it out against the brick wall on the far side of the cell and takes off his boots. Then he crawls into the sleeping bag, with his head under the bench, and rolls on his side with his back to the brick wall.

From the opposite cell, Daniel sighs, but he doesn't scream anymore.

Daryl closes his eyes. He tries to go to sleep, but he can only think of Carol in the infirmary, being calmly interrogated. That uneasy thought, however, is intermittently punctured by a much more pleasant one –

_She loves me._

[*]

Carol’s been working to build a rapport with the doctor ever since the sheriff and Daryl left, and she's done a pretty good job of it. Maybe she's even been flirting with him a little. Doctor or not, a man of his unusually short stature probably doesn't get a lot of attention from the ladies, and he's been soaking it up.

"I really should get going," he says. He's been pretending to tidy his equipment and his counterspace just to stay and keep talking to her. "I need some rest myself."

"Is the guard in the hallway going to get some rest, too?" Carol asks.

"No, he'll be there all night."

She laughs. "What do they think I'm going to do in my state? Every time I try to move, I feel like fainting."

"Well, he's there if you need anything."

"Who insisted on the guard?" Carol asks pleasantly. "The captain or the sheriff?" Daryl seemed unsure as to which was in charge. Perhaps she can learn.

"Probably the sheriff. The captain doesn't handle much in the way of details."

"Because the sheriff's in charge?" she asks casually.

Dr. Ahmad glances at the guard in the hallway and walks over to shut the infirmary door. He comes back and says, "Sheriff Garland's influential. Everyone knows he pulls the captain's strings. But the captain doesn't always agree with him."

"How so?" Carol asks.

"For instance, once, the sheriff tried to get rid of the tithe, but the captain put his foot down on that one."

"The tithe?" ask Carol, pulling the blanket up to her neck. It's a little cool in here, though earlier she could have sworn electric heat was floating out of a vent in the ceiling.  

"When people go out to scavenge, they're supposed to give one-tenth of everything they find to the captain, three-tenths to the community, and keep six-tenths for themselves. The sheriff doesn’t think the captain should get a tenth unless he's scavenging, too."

"Is that what you call it when you take everything from people you find on the road? Scavenging?" Carol tries to say it lightly, as if she's joking, so she won't offend him, but she thinks it falls flat.

"It's the one-time price of admission," Dr. Ahmad replies defensively. "We've got a lot to offer here. It shouldn't be free. And the people who settle here, in the long run, they end up with twenty-fold whatever we took at the start. Besides, we don't take people back with us unless they  _ask_  to be taken back."

"I don't remember asking to be taken back," Carol says while flashing him a friendly smile, "but then, I don't remember much. I'm glad they did, though. Thank you again, so much, for all your skilled help."

“Like I said, it's my job."

"This place is all so strangely wonderful," Carol says with widely innocent eyes. "Who do you suppose decided the captain was in charge?"

"A group of men from the U.S. Navy founded this place. They took in about forty survivors at the start, including me. A naval committee wrote all the laws and procedures for Jamestown, and it's been kind of a perpetual motion machine ever since. The captain's made a few changes to the charter, like the tithe, but not many." The doctor glances toward the closed door of the infirmary and then back. "He wasn't even a captain at the start. He was just a lieutenant junior grade. But so many of those naval men died fighting back the cannibals and securing Jamestown, that he was promoted quickly through the ranks. And then the admiral, vice admiral, and rear admiral all died of the flu, and suddenly the captain was the head honcho. He has been ever since."

"No one's challenged him for leadership?" Carol asks.

"No one  _wants_  to. He was a mighty cannibal slayer, in the beginning. The stories…you'd think he was Samson with his jawbone of an axe. And then, when we were raided a couple years back, he killed eight of those men single handedly before anyone else was awake. He's…" the doctor glances at the door again, "this goes no farther than this room?"

"My lips are sealed." Carol pretends to yank a zipper across her lips.

"He's stupid, but he's a fighter. And he's not a brutal ruler. He's a bit  _greedy_ , but he's not really oppressive. The people we've taken in over the years…many of them have escaped the heels of some pretty horrible rulers. The captain is mild in comparison. And he's a known variable."

"So you've all decided it's best not to rock the ship?"

"Why rock a ship that's been sailing so smoothly for years? It was rough the first year, but in the last six, we've lost only twenty-five people, and added over five hundred."

That  _is_  remarkable, Carol thinks, when she considers the number of camps and people that she and Daryl have lost. "Where'd all those people come from?"

"Some people just found us on their own. They would show up at our gates, like the sheriff did. But once the sheriff was here, he formed a posse to go out looking for other survivors like him. Sometimes he would bring in entire small groups."

Like Daryl used to do for the prison, Carol thinks, and Aaron for Alexandria. Only here, there's a finder's fee. "I guess the sheriff stored up a lot of loot that way."

"Not really. Most of the people he found were just eking out an existence. They didn't have many goods, but they had talents. Nearly everyone who was brought in helped build this place up in some way. If - "

The doctor falls abruptly silent. Carol realizes why when the sheriff swings open the door.

"Any reason this door was shut?" Sheriff Garland asks.

"It was getting cool," the doctor says. "I thought I'd trap the heat."

"Well, leave it open at all times, please."

"Yes, sir. I was just heading out for the night." Dr. Ahmad nods to Carol. "I'll be back in the morning to check on you."

"Thank you again, doctor."

When he's gone, Sheriff Garland pulls up a chair beside Carol's bed and sits in it facing her. His eyes are such an unusual shade – almost coal gray, but with a hint of blue. His mustache and soul patch remind her a bit of Val Kilmer's in  _Tombstone,_  but his hair is nothing like – it's thick, wavy, shoulder-length, and dark brown. He's an unusual looking man, but not a bad looking one, in fact, he's rather handsome. Unlike, the doctor, though, she doesn't think he'll be fooled by flattery. In fact, given how he bowled over her routine earlier, she thinks maybe directness is her best approach. "So I take it you're here to interrogate me?"

"I prefer to call it an interview."

Carol laughs. "Is there a job at the end of this tunnel?"

"I'm not quite sure  _what's_  at the end of this tunnel. I'm still exploring it. Why did you lie about being married?"

"Excuse me?"

"Or why did Daryl lie about being married? Because I suppose you haven't. Except to use his last name. That is  _his_  last name, isn't it? Dixon?"

"Yes."

"But it's not  _yours_?"

Carol briefly considers lying, but she doesn't think that will work. So instead she answers his question with a question: "Why do you think we aren't married?"

"All the jewelry stores in the world, and he couldn't be bothered to get you a wedding ring?"

Carol's eyes flit to the sheriff's ring finger, and she sees the platinum band. Again, she returns a question with a question: "Do you think it's practical, in this world, to wear a wedding band, given all the things it might get caught up on?"

"Since when has a woman ever cared about practicality when it comes to weddings?"

She smiles slightly.

"And you wore a wedding band once," he says. "Not all that long ago. There's still the hint of a tan line."

Instinctively, two of Carol's fingers from her right hand go to the ring finger on her left hand and toy with the empty spot. It was four months before she took her wedding and engagement rings off. It was seven months before Daryl commented on their absence. "Yes," she says. "My second husband died a year ago. My first died toward the start."

"My wife tells me that the third time's a charm."

"Is it your third time?" she asks.

"No. Hers. It's my first."

"No offense, but you seem a bit old for it to be a first." He looks like he's in his early forties.

"I never made it out of the gate. I had two broken engagements by the time I was thirty-four. I suppose my job as a homicide detective didn't lend itself to settled life. After that, I gave up on the idea, until the world ended and a few years later I met Shannon. And then I thought – maybe this woman will actually stay. After all, where has she got to go?"

"So far so good?" Carol asks.

"Yes, but it's only been a little over two years."

"Well," Carol says, "that's a lifetime in the apocalypse. You've made it past the seven-month itch."

He smiles, but then he controls that smile and forces it away. "Why did you lie? About being married?"

"It just seemed the easiest way to explain our relationship. We're more than friends. And there's something safer about it, among strangers, I think, saying – this is my husband."

"Because a husband's more likely to kill to protect you than a boyfriend is?" Sheriff Garland asks.

"Well, it's a risky world."

"Daryl says you came to Jamestown in search of your roots?"

"I did," she replies. "But I can see why you might be skeptical."

"It's more that I'm confused. The evidence points in one direction, but  _logic_  points in another.  _Logic_  says no one leaves a secure camp to wander hundreds of miles through a field of cannibals just to draw a family tree. I gather Daryl followed you because he's head over heels in love with you, but why did  _you_  want to do it?"

"Maybe for the same reason," says Carol, admitting to herself, for the first time, the depth of her own motivations.

"I'm not following."

"Maybe it was an excuse to get Daryl to spend a lot of time alone with me."

"Why in God's name would you need an excuse?" Sheriff Garland asks.

"Because Daryl is…Daryl. He couldn't just come straight out and say he we wanted to be more than friends."

"Then why couldn't  _you_  just come straight out and say it, if that's what you wanted?"

"I did. More or less. Eventually. But I had to lay the groundwork first with the road trip. I had to get him comfortable. Because otherwise it might have frightened him."

The sheriff laughs. "That man doesn't seem like he frightens easy."

"Well, not when it comes to the things that frighten most people."

Garland studies her with his head tilted to one side. "So you wooed him?  _You_ …the  _woman_?  _You_  wooed the  _man_?"

"Well, he wooed me, too. He's wooed me since the farm. He just didn't know he was doing it."

"Since the farm?" he asks.

"It was one of our first camps. We've been through several."

"And now you're together in the headquarters of your alliance? Or is Daryl heading one of the other several camps?"

It's a casual and seamless transition, and it almost trips Carol up.  _Almost._  "There are two camps in our alliance," she replies, "since that's what you want to know. There's ours, near D.C., which has about five hundred people, and another one near Baltimore, which only has about ninety."

None of that is true, of course. The Kingdom has two hundred people, and there is no camp near Baltimore. But she figures if Jamestown is more sinister than it appears, if it  _does_  decide to raid one of their camps, it will probably be that imaginary, smaller one. She chose the number five hundred for the Kingdom because she knows Jamestown has six hundred. She figures that way, they'll feel the Kingdom is a good match and not worth the risk of raiding, but also not so huge that the Kingdom would likely risk raiding Jamestown either.  _Mutually assured destruction_  is what they used to call it back in the 1980s, when she was in high school, and the Cold War was raging.

The sheriff must buy it, because he changes the subject. "The ancestor you presumably came to Jamestown to discover, what's his name?"

"Thomas Alan Mercer. My mother said- "

"- Knock. Knock."

Carol looks away from the sheriff to see a beautiful, smiling, green-eyed, thirty-something redhead in the doorway. She's holding folded clothes. "Carol," she says, and Carol wonders how she knows her name, "I brought you your sweatpants and that Monticello sweatshirt out of your pack and some fresh clean underwear. I'll help you get changed if you can't manage."

At this, Sheriff Garland rises. "You're supposed to be resting in bed. Did you  _walk_  all the way here?"

"I  _did_  rest, baby, and I feel  _fine_. Carol shouldn't have to sleep in her underwear, now should she? It's probably got some blood on it."

"You could have sent  _me_  back with the clothes," the sheriff tells her.

"Well I didn't know where you'd gone and wandered off to. And I don't think she wants a  _man_  helping to dress her."

"I'd have had the doctor do it."

"Well he's a man, too, Garland."

"He's a doctor."

Carol puts two and two together and figures this woman is Shannon, the sheriff's wife and her blood donor.

Shannon puts a hand on Garland's wrist and says, "My mama's fit to be tied. Gary  _will_  not settle down in his bed. He's run out of it three times now. I think he's going to need stern daddy tonight."

"I'll see what I can do." Garland bends down and kisses her.

When he disappears, Shannon shuts the door behind him and draws the blinds for privacy, saying, " _Men_. They have no idea how much a nice fresh pair of clothes can improve a girl's mood. Let's get you dressed."


	15. Fishing for Information

 

Carol’s head is feeling light from the effort of dressing when she slides back under the covers in her soft clothes. "Why are these so warm?" she asks.

"They just came out of the dryer," Shannon replies. "One of the laundry ladies did them. Washing the clothes before inventorying them is part of the procedure, to make sure we don’t bring in lice or bed bugs or anything else nasty."

"You have a _dryer_?" Carol asks in surprise.

"Two actually. Industrial ones. And two washers. They were for the museum to wash costumes for the employees. This used to be a living history sort of place."

Carol adjusts herself so she's sitting up in bed. "So you have running water and power?"

"Only in the museum. They renovated it before the Great Sickness, as part of that whole green energy craze. Good thing for us. There's even two shower stalls each in the men's and women's employee locker rooms. But Garand and I don't get to live in here."

"Who does?" Carol asks innocently.

"The orphans. The doctor and his wife." Dr. Ahmad has a wife? Carol never would have guessed from the way he responded to her attention. "The nanny – an elderly woman whose job it is to check in on the kids. The captain. But we  _all_  get a hot shower once a week. There's a schedule and a time limit, or we'd run out of water. The rest of the time we bathe in the river or use the washing troughs with hot water from a kettle."

"Do you have working toilets?" Because as soon as Carol can walk, she would much prefer that to the bed pan the doctor left her.

"In the employee locker rooms, yes. On a septic system. But most of us just use the outhouses that are closer to the Settlement or Indian Village where the bulk of us live."

When Shannon falls silent, Carol tries to think of an in. She wants to establish a rapport with this woman the way she did with the doctor. As the sheriff's wife, Shannon's bound to know a lot, and she also probably has influence over him. "You have a little boy?" Carol asks, remembering Shannon's conversation with Garland as he left.

"He'll be two in a week. Garland, Junior. But we call him Gary."

"Does he look like his father?"

"Yes, very much as a matter of fact, but Garland's not his daddy,  _biologically_  speaking. My camp raided this place a couple years ago. I was pregnant, so I stayed behind. Not that I would have joined anyway. I begged my husband not to.” 

" _Your_  people raided this camp?" Carol asks in genuine surprise.

Shannon nods and sits down in the chair Garland vacated, which is a good sign. It means she's going to stay and talk awhile. Maybe Carol will learn something.

"We were running out food at that point," Shannon explains. "Our gardens weren't growing, and there was less and less to scavenge. We had two hunters, but winter was coming, when game is scarce, and we had about two months before we knew we were going to be starving. One of ours, Mark, found this place one day, when he was out scavenging, and they brought him in. He didn't say a word about our camp because he wasn't sure what he was getting into. Jamestown told him he could stay permanently after a trial period. Well, he asked to leave after just a month, said he didn't want to join."

_That's_  why they're suspicious of people who want to leave now.

"But by then he'd gotten the lay of the land," Shannon continues, "found out as much as he could, seduced some whore – pardon my French - and got himself an inside helper out of her. Mark told us his woman would let us in, and we could take the place by surprise at night."

"And everyone agreed to do it?"  

"Mark said the inhabitants of Jamestown were brutal people, and they made all the women sex slaves. He made up all sorts of lies about them. He made it seem like they were  _worth_  killing. But when it was all said and done, they took in the twenty of us who were left behind. Kids, mostly. Daryl says y'all did that, too? Took in some of the people in a camp you defeated?"

Carol opens her mouth and then closes it. Daryl warned her to be careful around this woman, and she can see why now. She doesn't answer Shannon's question, but instead changes the subject. "It must have been scary at first, when they found you after your people had been defeated."

"It was Garland and his posse who found us. Only eight men, but I guess they'd spied our camp out from a distance enough to know we only had four women and a gaggle of kids. And there was only one shotgun between us. They rolled right on in. I thought it was the end for sure, that, after the lies Mark told, there was nothing but months of brutal gang rape in my future until I died. So I figured I'd go out in a blaze of gun smoke. I pumped that one shotgun, and before I could fire it, Garland thundered right by on his horse and plucked it straight out of my hands. Now  _that's_  a story to tell your kids one day when they ask you how you met. How did you and Daryl meet?"

She's fishing for information again, Carol sees, but it doesn't hurt to answer this one. That was in another, long-gone world. "At the start. I was in this camp in a quarry outside of Atlanta –"

"Georgia? You really came a long way to settle in D.C. You did settle in D.C., right?"

She already knows they did. Maybe Shannon's hoping Carol will get more specific. "More or less," Carol replies. "Anyway, there weren't many walkers – you call them cannibals – up there, not at first. They started coming up later when they ran out of food in the cities. So I was going off into the woods to use the restroom privately. I was starting to undo my pants where there was this voice behind me –  _I wouldn't piss there. Don't you see that diamondback?_  I screamed because there was a strange man behind me, and then this snake – which looked just like the forest floor - rattled right by my foot, and then there was this  _thunk,_  and an arrow went flying right into it."

"The crossbow was his weapon of choice even back then?" Shannon asks.

Shannon's been rummaging through their supplies, Carol sees, maybe with the sheriff, as part of the investigation. "Yes. I do hope he gets that back.”

"Well that's a fine damsel in distress story," Shannon says, ignoring the question of if they will get their weapons back. "Did you fall in love with him right then and there?"

"No. Not by a long shot."

"Then when?"

"I can't say," Carol answers. "I've probably fallen in six different kinds of love with him over the years."

"I couldn't say when I fell in love with Garland either. It came on gradually, after we were married."

Carol's no longer sure who's trying to build a rapport with whom here. "After?"

"The captain was understandably reluctant to take us in, given what our people did. They corralled us under guard the first week, and the captain and Garland asked us a lot of questions. I asked the captain what would reassure him that we meant to be a productive part of the community and cause it no harm, and he said if we were family of anyone at Jamestown, that would be one thing, but we weren't. We didn't have anyone to vouch for us or keep an eye on us. Anyway, later that evening, Garland shows up in the orphanage where we were all being kept and tells the guard he's taking me for a walk. And that's when he proposed. He said, give that baby in your womb my name, and I'll take care of it and you and your mother." Shannon laughs. "You know how those old alliances were formed through marriage? I guess we've been thrown back to that ancient world in more ways than one."

"So you had a forced marriage?" Carol asks.

"I wouldn't call it  _forced_.  _Arranged_ , more like. I could have said no and taken my chances. Garland would have kept trying to convince the captain to let us stay. But he thought this would be easier, and so did I. Besides, I was going to be out of commission for a while with the last month or two of pregnancy and the baby, and I wouldn't be able to work. I needed a husband who would earn my share of the rations. That's how we do it here - if someone can't work, someone else has to volunteer to step up and take on extra work on their behalf. I needed someone to lean on, and I think maybe Garland needed someone to lean. He'd always wanted a family, and it had just never worked out for him. And here a family was, ready to order, baby already in the womb, mother-in-law in tow. Who knew when another available woman would ever set foot in Jamestown. And, let's be honest, he was probably looking forward to having some sex for a change, too. He never was one to go to the whorehut."

Carol raises an eyebrow. "So there really is a brothel here?"

"I'm not a fan of it, but at least it's purely voluntary. The men here are mostly well behaved, though we had a terrible incident a month ago. We just convicted two men of rape. They were sentenced to hang, but they escaped, and one of them was the man who stabbed you."

Carol feigns surprise. She doesn't want Shannon to know she already knew that because she'd been talking in hushed whispers to Daryl while the doctor was gone. "Well, I feel better knowing I killed someone who was already condemned."

"Well, he was also trying to  _kill you_ ," Shannon says.

"There is that," Carol agrees. "So it worked out? Your marriage?"

"Garland seemed respectable, so I thought ours would be a tolerable marriage of convenience. It's turned out to be much more than that." Shannon smiles. "I don't think he expected me to talk so much, though. I was much quieter when I first got here. It wasn't just that I was scared of a new place. The brutal world out there beat me down. Once I was secure again, though, I guess my old personality came back."

"I know what that's like," Carol says. At the prison and in the Kingdom, during those stretches when things were settled, when she wasn't forced to kill other human beings to survive, she could be more herself. Some of the best parts of her old personality – the good humor, the affection, the maternal nature – came back without the old timidness, fear, and excessive deference also returning. In a way, she became like she was  _before_  Ed, but stronger.

They talk a little longer, and Shannon makes a few more innocent fishing attempts for information about their camps, but Carol doesn't give her anything she doesn't already know. They're interrupted when the door swings suddenly open. A massive man stands in the doorway, his belt buckle undone, and his shirt half tucked into his pants and half untucked. He sways slightly to and fro.

Shannon leans forward and whispers to Carol. "Looks like he hit that nasty moonshine after he spent all that good whiskey in the whorehut." Pulling back Shannon says. "Hello, Captain."

The captain leans on the door frame, raises one black, bushy eyebrow, and points toward Carol. "It's time for me to interrogate the captive and get to the bottom of this caper!" His voice rises on the word  _caper_ , like a theatrical actor's. "Who? What? When? Where?" he barks toward Carol.

Shannon bites down on a smile. "I think it's time for you to get to bed, John."

"Are  _you_  taking me to bed, gorgeous?" the Captain wiggles his eyebrow up and down. "I don't think Gar would mind. He's a generous man. A very generous man."

"Not  _that_  generous."

"I should have volunteered to marry you instead of him," the captain says, slurring slightly. "Who knew after you dropped that baby you'd have such a lovely figure?"

"You damn me with faint praise, Captain." Shannon stands from her chair.

"I'd have made you a fantastic husband!" he booms. "I mean, maybe a  _little_  cheating." The captain holds his thumb and forefinger an inch a part. "Just a  _little_. Solo un poco. You like that? I hear women love a man who speaks French."

"That's Spanish, Captain."

He starts laughing and has to slam his palm against the doorframe to hold himself up.

"Come on, Captain," Shannon tells him, and puts a hand on his shoulder to gently push him back from the doorway. He stumbles back a few steps, nearly falls, and the guard catches him – almost getting knocked over himself in the process by the bulk of the man.

"Get him to bed, will you?" Shannon asks crisply. It's the first time Carol's heard a hard edge to her voice, and it gives her a hint of how formidable this woman could be, perhaps, if she needed to be.

"Yes, ma'am," the guard replies.

Shannon turns around, her voice returning to sweetness. "Sorry about that display. The guard will get him settled, and I'm sure he'll pass out and leave you alone tonight. Once Garland talks to him, he probably won't bother to question you at all, or at least he won't without Garland present. I'll bring you some books in the morning. It's got to be boring in here. But tonight you should get some sleep. This door will be open. If you need anything, you just holler at the guard. He'll be in the hall all night."

Shannon flicks the overhead lights off on her way out. The infirmary is bathed in shadows, and in the hallway glows a single overhead light. Through the open doorway, Carol watches the guard return. He shakes his head, slumps into his blue plastic chair, and lays his rifle across his lap.


	16. Breakfast in the Breakroom

When someone enters the jailhouse early the next morning, Daryl clatters anxiously to his feet, but it's only the bailiff Earl, come to get Daniel for his trial.

Daryl throws himself back down on his bench and waits, jumping at every shadow in the doorway for the next two hours. The sheriff finally appears, saying, "Sorry it's a bit late in the morning, but I had to testify at the trial."

Garland takes him out of the cell but doesn't cuff him. He does guide him by the arm, however. When they emerge into the settlement, one group of kids is filing out of the one-room schoolhouse for recess while another group is marching in for lessons. Garland stops by an outhouse so Daryl can use something better than a piss pot, and then by a washing trough so he can, the sheriff says, "look presentable for your woman."

Carol is awake and looking about two times better when they get to the infirmary. Garland lets Daryl wheel her to the breakroom in a wheelchair for breakfast, where Shannon has just finished placing a meal on the table. "You two love birds enjoy," Shannon says.

Carol thanks her for the meal and again for her life-saving blood. Shannon and Garland both leave them alone, the sheriff warning, "There's a guard outside this door." He shuts the door on his way out.

Carol looks at the repast before her – a heaping bowl of oatmeal topped with fresh, sliced strawberries, a glass of water, and a hot cup of coffee. "They must grow oats here," she says. "This doesn't look like it came from a box."

Meanwhile, Daryl continues to stand and look around the room. He checks the position of the guard and determines he's too far away to hear a quiet conversation across the table through a closed door. He also checks the breakroom for vents and windows to make sure the sheriff isn't outside somewhere listening in. There are no windows, and only one vent, on the wall at the end of the counter, which Daryl closes and then shoves the microwave against.

Finally, he sits down in the folding chair across from Carol. She takes her first bite of oatmeal after blowing off a curl of steam from her spoon.

He picks up his spoon and asks, "Sheriff interrogate you last night?"

"He asked me how many communities there were, since you kind of let the cat out of the bag that it wasn't just the Kingdom."

"Sorry," Daryl mutters, and shamefully shovels a spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth.

"The captain stopped by, too, later."

Daryl looks up abruptly from his bowl. "He touch you?"

"Shannon didn't even let him through the door. He was  _very_  drunk."

"Shannon?" Daryl asks. "Thought Garland took 'er home."

"She came back to bring me some clothes. We chatted last night. I think I like her, but she's a crafty one. Don't feel so bad about tripping up, Pookie. She almost tripped me up, too."

"Ya tell 'er anything?" Daryl asks.

"I didn't tell her or Sheriff Garland anything they didn't already know or that mattered if they did know. They don't  _seem_  like the type to raid camps here, and I  _think_  they'll leave us alone, but better safe than sorry. The less they know about the other communities, the better. So I told Sheriff Garland there were only two camps…" She goes onto to explain what she said and why she said it.

Daryl smiles. "I married a smart one."

Carol chuckles. "He doesn't believe we're married because you haven't put a ring on it. So I admitted we're not." Daryl's annoyed the sheriff saw through yet another lie, but his annoyance must look like disappointment, because Carol asks, "Why? Did you  _want_  to be married?"

"Nah!" That came out more forcefully than he meant it to, and he can see the hurt look on her face. He just means it wasn't what he was thinking at the moment. "Nah, don't mean no.  _Not_  no. Not  _yes_  neither. Just…dunno," he stumbles. "Wouldn't mind if we was. Just wouldn't know how to do it."

"How to do what?"

"Be married."

Carol smiles. "You wouldn't have to  _do_  anything other than what you  _do_  already. You'd just have to promise never to leave me and never to make out with anyone else."

"Ain't never gonna do that anyway." Daryl shovels his oatmeal into his mouth and wonders what just happened in this conversation. Did they just get engaged? Are they  _more_  than more-than-friends now? He eats until his spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl.

Carol eats quietly and seems to be thinking, about what, Daryl doesn't know. Maybe she's thinking about their engagement.  _If_  they  _are_  engaged. Are they?

It'll be easier if he doesn't have to think about it. She'll probably tell him eventually if they are. Daryl slides his coffee cup toward himself and looks at her. "Sherriff seem to believe ya?"

"He seemed to buy it completely. He moved on to another topic."

Carol's a much better liar, Daryl thinks. She had a lot of practice, married to Ed – not just lying about the bruises, but lying to him to stroke his ego. Daryl's a horrible liar. That's why he  _usually_  opts to keep his mouth shut. "What else he ask ya?"

"Who my Jamestown ancestor was."

"'N what else?"

"That was it."

"Really?" Daryl asks skeptically.

"We chatted a little, but those were the only real questions he asked."

"So ya think the sheriff's really in charge?"

"I think it's twenty percent the captain and eighty percent the sheriff." Carol pushes her bowl aside. "But you know who's in charge of the sheriff?"

No. Daryl doesn't. Did Carol find out about another top leader? "Who?"

"His wife. Shannon."

Daryl snorts, but then peers at Carol because he's not sure she isn't serious.

"She has a lot of influence over him, anyway. I'm trying to get more out of her, to build a connection. Girl to girl."

"Cookie Carol's makin' an appearance?" Daryl asks with a smirk. "Need a cardigan?"

Carol rolls her eyes. They talk a little more as they drain the last of their coffee, about how they're being treated, and where they might want to stop on the way home if they ever do get out of here and finish their road trip.

Carol falls silent because there's a knock on the door. "Y'all done eating?" the sheriff asks after he swings it open.

"Yes, thank you," Carol tells him.

Garland strolls in. "The doctor's in the infirmary," he tells Carol. "He's coming to get you in just a second. He needs to check out your vitals and all that. Shannon left you some books for the afternoon. I'm going to need to take Daryl back to his cell." He motions for Daryl to stand up and turn around.

Daryl sighs and complies.

"Is keeping him in a  _cell_  really necessary?" Carol asks.

"It's protocol," Garland replies. "Until we can get everything straightened out."

Daryl, with his hands behind his back, bends down to kiss Carol. She reaches up and puts a hand behind his head to push him in deeper. She smells of bitter-sweet strawberries and he wants to taste her forever.

After a while, Garland clears his throat.

**[*]**

Birds swoop and caw over the James River as Garland leads Daryl down the docks back toward the settlement and the jailhouse. The  _Godspeed_  is just starting to head down the river. The captain stands at the helm, back straight, chin up, hands on the wheel, and a white cap on his head as fishermen untangle their nets on the decks and sailors tug on ropes to finish hoisting a sail.

"Surprised the captain ain't hungover," Daryl says. "Carol said he was real drunk last night."

"He's never hungover," Garland replies. "It's one of his rare talents."

When they've just about reached the wooden, triangular fence around the settlement, three horses ride out of it toward them. Daniel sits on one with his hands cuffed to the horn of the saddle. Behind him, holding the reins, sits Earl, Garland's balliff. Two more armed, mounted men flank them.

"The verdict's in already?" the sheriff asks Earl.

Earl nods. "Banishment. We're taking him and dropping him somewhere several miles outside of Jamestown and leaving him with a tent, enough food and water for three days, a hunting knife, and a mini-axe. We'll be back by tomorrow afternoon."

"Might as well just have executed me," Daniel says. "Would have saved y'all a lot of time and trouble."

Sheriff Garland says nothing and pushes Daryl onward.

[*]

Daryl's alone in his cell in the empty jailhouse for quite some time. The sheriff has left him a stack of his own books – a Louis L'Amour western, a Raymond Chandler hardboiled detective novel, William Faulkner's  _As I Lay Dying_ , Cormac McCarthy's  _All the Pretty Horses_ , and a 1999  _Gun Digest_.

Daryl flips through the  _Gun Digest_  for fifteen minutes and then tosses it aside. He picks up the Cormac McCarthy book but puts it down after ten pages. This damn writer doesn't use quotation marks or hardly any commas, and Daryl can't tell who's saying what half the time. Besides, it's boring. The Faulkner novel is even worse. It makes his brain hurt. Daryl wonders what it says about the sheriff that he reads this kind of crap.

The Louis L'Amour book turns out to be much better. In fact, Daryl blows through it in about an hour and a half. It's good, except for the completely unnecessary romantic subplot. By then he's tired of reading. So he does 150 sit-ups and 45 push-ups. He unlaces and re-laces his boots more neatly. He plays tic-tac-toe with himself in the dirt and loses.

For the next half hour, Daryl paces the cell and thinks about Carol, about whether or not she thinks they're engaged or wants them to be. He worries about whether or not he's supposed to propose. He thinks about what kind of husband Ezekiel was, and about what kind of husband Carol might expect him to be. He recalls his parents' own terrible marriage, their constant fighting, his father's cheating, and his mother's drive to drown her sorrows in the bottle. He thinks about what it might be like, to wake up beside Carol every morning and have sex before breakfast, or at least a chance to  _try_  for sex before breakfast. He thinks about what it would be like to have sex with her at all, since they haven't actually made it that far yet. He worries if she's going to like it if and when they finally do, if he's going to hold out long enough to get her off, if he's ever going to get out of this place and have a  _chance_  to get her off.

Sherriff Garland returns. A wooden chair scrapes across the floor of the jailhouse, leaving light brown tracks of upturned dirt, as the sheriff pulls it before the iron bars. He sits down and tells Daryl to have a seat, too. Daryl does, on his little cell bench.

Garland reaches into the inside pocket of his brown suede vest and pulls out a small, handheld, battery-operated tape recorder.

_What the hell?_

Garland holds up the tape recorder where Daryl can see it through the bars, and then he clicks play.

Carol's familiar voice seeps through the tiny speaker, speaking words from their conversation in the breakroom: "The less they know about the other communities, the better…"


	17. Chatting with Garland

In Daryl's gut rests what feels like a tangled, rolled-up ball of heavy copper wire.

_Shit._

_Fuck._

"….so I lied and told him there's only one other camp in Baltimore..." Carol's voice dies as Garland clicks the tape recorder off.

The sheriff coolly opens his vest and drops the tiny recorder into the inside pocket. "My wife kindly secured that recorder under your table when she was setting it for breakfast. You thought to check for vents, I see, even moved the microwave to better block one after closing it, but you didn't think to check for recording devices. Clearly you come from an alliance of some sort, with at least one camp in Washington, D.C., and  _at least_  two more camps,  _neither_  of which is in Baltimore. How big is this alliance, really?"

Daryl keeps his mouth shut this time.

"No, you're not going to tell me that, of course. But you and your woman both, you've been lying through your teeth ever since you got here, changing your story, flipping it this way and that."

Daryl swallows, stares straight ahead at the sheriff, and says nothing.

"Which is why I planted the tape recorder. I knew you wouldn't be honest with me, but I figured you'd be honest with each other. I've spent the last couple of hours doing some sleuthing in the museum's archives. Carol said her ancestor was named Thomas Alan Mercer. I found his name in a ledger of recorded deaths. He came to Jamestown in a late wave of settlers, after the Starving Time, luckily for him. That was a grim time. Did you know the earliest English settlers resorted to cannibalism?"

Daryl shakes his head slightly.

"That's the supposition, anyway. Archaeologists exhumed the bones of a fourteen-year-old girl that was buried here in the 1600s. They discovered there were tentative chops made to her forehead.” Garland slaps his open palm with the side of his hand. “Then the girl was turned over, and there were four strikes made to the back of her head. The strongest one split her skull clear in half. A penetrating wound was then made here." The sheriff points to his left temple. "Likely by a single-sided knife. That was then used to pry the skull open and remove the brain."

Daryl's fingers wrap tightly around the rough, wooden edges of his bench. Half-buried, nightmare memories of Terminus flash through his mind.

"She was  _murdered_ ," the sheriff says. "A fourteen-year-old girl. For  _food_. It's amazing, isn't it, the lengths that people will go to survive in times of hardship? The lies they will tell. The people they will betray. The children they will murder. The unnatural crimes they will commit."

Daryl shifts uneasily on his bench. He has no idea where the sheriff is going with this.

"That's why we have to protect ourselves. That's why we have to have…" - He waves around the jailhouse - "…procedures in place. Rules. Interviews. Investigations. Trials. And even those sometimes fail. Even then someone can convince you that they're alone in this world and mean you no harm. And then when you let them go, they can come back a week later with an army who will murder you in your sleep."

Daryl swallows, but still does not speak.

"Thomas Alan Mercer was not eaten," Sheriff Garland says. "He died at the ripe old age of eighty-eight. So I suppose the Mercer line persisted. And I did find that grave rubbing among Carol's things – for a Father George Aaron Mercer. You weren't lying when you said she was tracing her roots. You lied about  _other_  things, but you lied to protect your communities. You lied because you're afraid Jamestown might roll in and raid one of those camps. You don't trust us anymore than we trust you."

Daryl doesn't reply.

"As far flung as your little road trip in search of roots story may appear on first glance, I  _do_  believe you. I don't think you came to do us harm. And based on the conversation you two had in the breakroom, I don't think you'll seek to do us harm if we let you go. I think you're just afraid we'll do harm to  _you_. That conversation made it clear to me _what_ you were lying about and _why_."

The great ball of tension in Daryl's gut unwinds, and hope begins to buoy up in him. "That mean we're goin' home?"

"That's not up to me. That will require a trial for release. It will be up to the jury to decide that."

"Thought the captain made those decisions," Daryl says.

"The captain has veto power. He can overturn any jury verdict and demand a re-trial with a new jury. I'll present my evidence, and I'll recommend you be allowed to leave. But the jury can come to a different conclusion. And the captain can overturn any conclusion they come to."

"That spy? One came back 'n raided this place? Did ya recommend he be allowed to leave?" If the sheriff  _did_ , his testimony on their behalf may not mean much.

The sheriff nods. "It was my greatest mistake. He deceived me, and I blame myself for the deaths that followed. There are others who blame me, too."

"Ya seem to be pretty well liked 'round here."

"Not by anyone who lost family that day."

"But it ain't all on ya," Daryl says. "Jury let 'em go, right?"

"Because the jury respected my opinion," the sheriff replies. "And the captain didn't veto it because he respected my opinion. But I can't guarantee he won't veto a release decision now. We've admitted people successfully to the community since that raid, but no one has asked to  _leave_  since then."

"How's the jury chosen?"

"By lottery. Six names are drawn at random from a pool of all citizens." He glances toward the jailhouse door. Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, the sheriff says, "Look, if the jury decides it doesn't trust my judgment, the worst thing that's going to happen is that they decide to keep you under lock and key another week or two while further investigation is conducted. After all, we don't execute anyone unless and until they commit a heinous crime. If you aren't released, eventually you'll be granted probationary admission. During those four probation months, if you keep your nose clean and you work hard and you don't cause trouble, you can get your weapons and horses back. One day, when you're on the outside working – maybe as a scavenger, hunting, gathering, whatever it is you can do - you can just slip away. My posse and I won't chase you." The sheriff sits back. "Well, we  _will_ , for a while. But we won't catch you. I'll see to that."

"Won't that damage yer reputation 'n influence? If ya lose us?"

"Most likely."

"Why would ya do that for us then?"

"Because I think you mean us no harm. I think you have homes and people to go back to. And I've read Aesop's fable about the lion and the mouse."

"I ain't."

"Well, it's a good one. You should."

"When's this trial for release?" Daryl asks.

"It will probably be scheduled for the day after tomorrow, to allow Earl, my deputy who serves as the bailiff, to return from dropping Daniel in the woods. Until then, I'm sorry, but I have to keep you and Carol apart. It's pre-trial protocol. She'll stay in the infirmary under guard, and you'll stay here. I can't let you see each other until the trial is over. If I did, it might appear to the jury you had opportunity to colluded on your stories."

Daryl throws his head back against the brick wall of the cell and sighs. "A'ight. Understand."

[*]

It's Shannon who delivers the news to Carol in the infirmary, after pulling up a chair beside her bed.  

Carol shakes her head. "I didn't even  _consider_  the possibility you might be recording us."

"Garland was gambling you wouldn't."

"We even used a working boombox at a bar a couple nights ago!" Carol's irritated with herself. "And still  _I_  didn't think of it."

"Well, think of it this way. If you  _had_  suspected, and you'd just kept lying, Garland never would have been confident he knew the truth, and he wouldn't be able to argue for release."

"I suppose."

"Why do you call it the Kingdom?" Shannon asks. "Your camp?"

Carol thinks that, at this point, Shannon's just curious rather than fishing for information. Even so, she doesn't say anything that matters. "The man who founded it…let's just say he had a theatrical bent. He was a zookeeper by profession, but he used to do community theater as a hobby. He acted in Shakespeare plays. And when he built the camp, he called it the Kingdom, and he called himself King Ezekiel."

"Sounds like one hell of a pompous ass."

"He was my husband."

"Oh." Shannon looks genuinely embarrassed. "Sorry."

"He was….corny," Carol admits. "But he was a good, kind man."

"I thought you said you'd been in love with Daryl all these years?"

"I have. In one way or the other. But…we drifted apart. We were in different communities. I experienced some…horrors. I needed to move on from them, to forget them, to rebuild. So I did. But Ezekiel died last year."

"So then…you're the  _Queen_?" Shannon asks.

Carol nods.

"So you  _really_  need to get home then. Your people are counting on you."

"Yes. I understand if we're released, we'll get our horses and weapons back?"

"Yes,” Shannon answers, “and you'll get your riding gear, bedrolls, canteens, personal effects, and a tenth of your ammo. But everything else has already been confiscated and divvied up. If it helps you to be less resentful, consider it your payment for your medical care and your room and board while you're here. And for stabling and feeding your horses."

"Well," Carol says, glancing around the infirmary. "I  _am_  alive. But do you think the jury  _will_  release us?"

"Garland will make a good argument," is all Shannon will say.

"And the prosecutor?" Carol asks. "Is he good?"  

"There's no prosecutor. It's not that kind of trial. More of a hearing. The captain will direct the proceedings." Carol doesn't like the sound of that. "The jury can ask questions of Garland and of you and Daryl when you testify."

"Do we have to testify?" Carol asks.

"You're applying for release. If you don't testify, there's no application.”

Carol sighs. “Can I see Daryl first?” 

"I’m sorry, but no. It's protocol. The only reason Garland let you two see each other at all was as part of his investigation. But if he violates pre-trial protocol, it might damage your case. When you  _do_ testify, just stick to the truth while saying as little as possible. Garland will advise Daryl to do the same." Shannon stands up. "I have to go. I need to get to work."

"What do you do?" Carol asks.

"I'm in charge of the eastern gardens. Three of them. I supervise, but I also get my hands dirty." Shannon turns them palm forward and wiggles her fingers, and Carol can see they're stained black with soil.  

When Shannon leaves, Carol returns to the stack of books she's left her.

[*]

The sheriff comes to the jailhouse the next morning with a plate of food – scrambled eggs, pan fried potatoes, and strawberries. He tells Daryl that the trial's been slated to start tomorrow afternoon and, after he eats, takes him to the outhouse and to scrub up. Then he cuffs Daryl’s hands in front and walks with him around the inside perimeter of the settlement, along the fence line, so he can get some fresh air and exercise. Lots of people give Daryl curious glances, but no one tries to talk to him. Three men walk by with broken, open shotguns in the crooks of their arms and a barking dog on their heels. "Happy hunting," the sheriff tells them, and Daryl thinks of his own dog back at the Hilltop and hopes his old friend's leg is healing nicely.

The sheriff narrates while they walk, almost as if he's giving a tour. "These were the original barracks. Well, a re-creation of the original barracks."

"Still a barracks?" asks Daryl, peering inside the brick structure. It sure looks like people are sleeping in those bunks.

"A number of the single men stay here. Others stay in the cabins of the ships or share huts in the Indian Village."

Just beyond the barracks is a bulwark. "That cannon actually work?" Daryl wonders aloud as they walk inside the circular, defensive structure.

"It does," Garland replies. "They tested them on a small herd of cannibals once. If worse came to worse, and enemies breached the front gate and took the museum, we could retreat and defend the Settlement and Indian Village from here.” 

Through one of the windows of the bulwark, in the distance, Daryl can see a graveyard littered with wooden crosses. There aren’t many, for a town this size. Twenty-five, maybe. The sheriff notices him looking and says, "The first year, they burned the bodies. Too many deaths from the cannibals and disease. But since then, there haven't been many losses. Fifteen died in that raid. One woman died in childbirth, one from a botched abortion she tried to perform herself. Two murdered men, one case of infant mortality, a stillborn, a hunting accident, or so I ruled it for the sake of the wife and children, though I'm pretty sure it was a suicide. One man managed to get bit by a cannibal while out scavenging, one drowned in the river swimming while drunk, and one died of natural causes. Have you had many losses?"

"Too many," Daryl mutters. The catalog of names scrolls though his mind.

"Mostly from cannibals and natural causes?"

"War, mostly."

"Even though you have that defensive alliance?" the sheriff asks. "Or does the alliance  _get_  you into wars? An attack against one is an attack against all?"

Daryl's never thought about the alliance that way. But if Alexandria and the Hilltop had never encountered each other, maybe the war with the Saviors never would have happened. Even when their world was small, though, when it was just the prison, just Alexandria, there was still war – the Governor, the Wolves. "Sometimes we just been attacked for no damn good reason."

"Well, there's strength in numbers," Garland says as he leads them away from the bulwark. "In walls and forts. I take it you're more settled now? You have better defenses?"

"Still conductin' interviews?" Daryl asks.

"I'm just curious at this point. I'm showing you our world. Telling you about it. It means I trust you."

Later, the sheriff leads them through an opening in the fence to another section Daryl hasn't seen before, which is adjoined to the settlement with a trapezoidal, wood fence. Bleating fills the air, and they soon pass a sheep pen. A man sits on a stool shearing wool and says, "Mornin', Sheriff."

The sheriff tips his hat and replies, "Good morning, Glenn."

Daryl's heart twists at the old familiar name.

Next they pass a pen where pigs snort and rummage. A man tosses them slop from a tin bucket, looks at Daryl warily, and says, "Morning, Sheriff."

"Good morning, Stan."

They walk by a chicken coop next, outside of which a rooster struts, and then a garden, where two men and one woman, Shannon, are working. "Hey, baby," says Shannon, standing and slapping the dirt off her hands.

 

Garland smiles and gives her a kiss. When Shannon steps back, she looks at Daryl. "I'll be visiting Carol later. I'm going to bring her lunch. She's doing well."

Daryl nods. He wants to say, "Tell her I love her," but he's not sure if that would be weird.

The sheriff jerks his head to indicate Daryl should walk on. As they do, Daryl can feel the eyes of the gardeners on his back.  “The women don’t work much?” Daryl asks. He hasn’t seen many.

"They do, but here we have three men for every woman. Are women this scarce in your alliance?"

"Ain't too uneven." In fact, there might be  _more_  women, given that Oceanside is still seventy percent female, despite movement between the communities.

"Almost every woman here has a husband or steady boyfriend," Garland tells him. "Although there's one who's a lesbian, much to the dismay of the men. There are a couple who like to play the field. And then of course there are the prostitutes. I proposed shutting the whorehut down three months after I became sheriff. That's when that prostitute died from the botched abortion. And I'm admittedly a bit concerned about public health. All of the old-world condoms are expired by now. Some of the men do make natural sheepskins, but I don't know how effective they are at preventing the spread of STDs.”

“Take it yer proposal wasn’t accepted?”

“Proposed laws have to be approved by a jury, and unfortunately the lottery gave me a jury of six men, four of them single, and they quickly denied my proposal. I  _thought_  of reapplying. You can re-propose the same issue after six months has passed - but the captain made it abundantly clear to me that he would veto any jury decision to shut the whorehut down, so I didn't bother."

"So, is that the captain's main power?" asks Daryl. "Vetoin' shit?"

Garland nods. "Two years ago, the captain made it clear he'd veto any jury ruling granting admission to Shannon's people if they weren't bound to us in some clear way and if there wasn't someone working for their rations, which is why I proposed to her. Well, that and…" He glances back in the distance at his wife in the garden. "She's beautiful." He looks forward again. "And smart as a whip." He chuckles and shakes his head. "She gave me a hard time in those interviews. Anyway, another man married the other pregnant woman from that camp, and took in her mother, like I took in Shannon's. So that was the women and infants and elders provided for. The orphans…well, we put kids age twelve and up to work, but we had to find volunteers to work for the rations of the younger ones. Shannon and I sponsor one, that little one I caught skipping school. Terrence. So I have to shovel shit on my day off, and she gardens extra hours beyond her required work week. We'd bring him to live with us, but it's tight quarters in our little cabin as is, and he likes being in the museum with the other kids."

"So if a jury's got to approve laws, how come the captain's got the power to tax?" Daryl asks. "Mean the tithe?"

"The tithe only applies to scavenged and seized goods, not to what's produced here. From production, he gets the same ration as anyone else. But yes, that scavenger's tithe was a change to the charter he proposed, and the jury voted to confirm it."

"But  _why_?"

The sheriff looks around to make sure no one is in earshot. "I suspect they were bribed. But that was before my time here. And when I proposed getting rid of the tithe, the captain proposed demoting me if I didn't take the issue off the docket. That's his  _real_  power. He promotes and demotes people within the government hierarchy. The old sheriff was murdered, and one of the supply rooms robbed, about a month after I gained full admission here. I quickly solved the case, exposed the culprit, and recovered the stolen goods, and I guess the captain was impressed. That got me an immediate promotion to the job, which is third in the line of secession. It goes captain, manager, sheriff, commander, lieutenant commander, lieutenant, and lieutenant junior grade. There are seven of us in the government."

"Manager?" Daryl asks.

"He manages the farming industry. He's sixty-nine and drinks like a fish, so I don't know how long he'll live."

Sherriff Garland has really opened up, and Daryl wonders if it's because he has a literally captive audience, a man he knows – one way or the other - won't be sticking around, a man who doesn't talk much and won't be blabbing.

They pause before another building. "This is the Factory," the sheriff tells Daryl. "It was used for trading, brewing, and other industrial activities in the original Jamestown."

The fruity scent of beer drifts from the open frame. "Still use it for brewin'?"

"Yes," Garland answers as he walks on. "And also we make moonshine there." Daryl matches his pace.

"If ya make yer own alcohol," Daryl asks, "how come some of yer men wanted mine so bad?"

"Because it was better than what we make, and so it trades with higher value. And the alcohol rations here are small. We can only make so much. If I had my druthers, we'd make even less. There are better uses of barley and corn."

"Yeah, m'camp made me stop making ethanol from the corn for m'bike."

"You have a motorcycle?" the sheriff asks in awe. "One that  _runs_?"

"Converted it to run on ethanol. Can still make a gallon every now 'n then, when they got rotten corn they can't use. Take m'bike for a spin sometimes. Not long. Not far."

"God what I wouldn't give for a good muscle car instead of a horse," the sheriff pines. "I used to have a 1998 Dodge Charger. Silver with a black racing stripe down the middle. Miss that damn car."

They've made it all the way around the trapezoidal perimeter and are headed back into the triangular section of the settlement now. They pass the old governor's mansion. "Four families live there now," Garland says.

Later they pass the sheriff's own cabin. "How'd ya get stuck with such a small house?" Daryl asks. "If yer the number three man?"

"Well, it was bigger when it was just me. It has two bedrooms. My mother-in-law and son are in one, and my wife and I are in the other. I prefer the seclusion of my own cabin. It feels more like a home. And I like the sounds of the settlement. It feels more like community. It keeps me closer to the bulk of the people, which keeps me better informed."

"'Fore a bedroom opened up in the Hilltop mansion, I used to sleep in the loft of the barn."

Sheriff Garland chuckles. "Now, that I would not like. The stench."

"Ya get used to it."

"You don't live with Carol?"

"Nah. Not…yet."

"Mhm, well," the Sheriff says as he strolls with his hands behind his back, "we have boxes and boxes full of jewelry if you want to look for an engagement or wedding ring. I'm sure we could easily spare one. Every now and then we melt them down for something."

Daryl murmurs an indecipherable response.

"Life is short," Garland tells him. "And he who hesitates is lost. Hell, I didn't know Shannon a week and a day before I married her, and that turned out well."

They're back at the jailhouse now. Garland uncuffs Daryl and unlocks his cell door.

"Got any more of them Louis L'Amour books?" Daryl asks after he walks inside.

"You read everything I gave you?"

"Nah. Just that one, 'n the detective story."

"The Raymond Chandler? Did you like it?"

"Yeah. 'S a'ight. Had it figured out on page twenty. Liked the western better."

"Well now that I know your tastes, I'll see what I can do." The sheriff clicks the key in the lock. "I'll be back in three hours or so with lunch and books. You want anything else? Jigsaw puzzle, maybe?"

Sometimes, in Daryl, that old, instinctive redneck need to perpetually defend his manhood flares up. "I look like the kind of pansy who puts together fuckin' jigsaw puzzles?"

"I don't know," the sheriff replies. "Do  _I_?"

Daryl bites the inside of his mouth.  _Shit._  The sheriff was offering him his  _own_  jigsaw puzzles, apparently. "Sorry," he mutters. "Didn't mean to insult ya."

"It's a good way to wind down before the fire on a quiet evening. I've almost finished putting together the Mona Lisa. It's challenging. So much black."

"Mhm."

When the sheriff's in the doorway, Daryl grabs his cell bars and calls, "Hey, man, really didn't mean to insult ya. Thanks for tryin' to help us."

The sheriff turns around with a light smile on his face. "Don't worry. My ego has survived the blow." He tips his hat to Daryl and walks out chuckling.

Daryl picks up the pack of playing cards the sheriff left him, plops down on his unrolled sleeping bag, and begins playing solitaire on the dirt floor.


	18. A Blast from the Past

 

Shannon enters the infirmary with a lunch tray in her hands – fish, potatoes, cooked spinach, and a full glass of milk - and a drawstring bag over her shoulder. She settles the tray on the retractable desk over Carol's bed, shuts the door, and pulls up a chair. She pats the drawstring bag. "I brought you some entertainments in here. Word find book, crossword puzzle book, writing paper, some pencils. A  _really good_  erotica novel. You're going to  _love_  it."

Carol laughs. "I don't think I need that."

"Why?" Shannon asks. "Is Daryl  _that_  good in bed?"

Carol almost spits out her milk but swallows it down and sets the cup on her tray. "I don't know honestly," she confesses. "We haven't gone that far yet." Carol has no idea why she shares that bit of information. Maybe it's because Shannon isn't someone she'll see again, once they're out of here, and they will get out of Jamestown – one way or the other.

"Whaaaat?" Shannon asks with such gleeful surprise that Carol laughs again.

"We're taking things slowly," Carol tells her.

"I'll say. Didn't you say you'd known each other since the start?  _Seven years_  slowly?"

"We've  _known_  each other, but we only kissed for the first time less than two weeks ago."

Shannon chuckles and shakes her head. "Well, I waited until we were married to have sex with Garland."

"Didn't you marry him a week or two after you met him?" Carol asks as she cuts the white, flaky fish with her fork.

"Well, there is  _that_. Although we weren’t _complete_ strangers. He had several private interviews with me. In retrospect I don't think their purpose was  _entirely_  information gathering. We talked a lot about things that had nothing to do with anything. I figured he was making me comfortable to get to the bottom of things. But maybe he just enjoyed talking to me. Anyway, he seemed decent, and he looked pretty damn sexy too. Still does. Don't you think?"

"I…" Carol's fork freezes partway up from her plate. "I don't know how to answer that." She pops a bite in her mouth and chews.

"Oh, you know  _exactly_  how to answer that," Shannon tells her. "The answer is  _yes_. Your man's sexy, too, by the way. I mean, he looks like he could clean up a bit, but those are some very nice biceps."

Carol coughs. She takes a sip of milk to wash down this potato that seems to have lodged itself in her throat. Shannon's right, though, Daryl does have very nice biceps. Carol suppose any woman can take a gander, but those are only  _her_  arms to touch. To run her hands all over. To kiss. And…Maybe she shouldn't be thinking about all this right now, when she can't even see Daryl for another day, let alone touch hm.

"Anyway, that first night," Shannon continues, "our wedding night? I was so pregnant and felt so huge. But Garland seemed to think I was the most beautiful thing on earth. He was as excited as sixteen-year-old boy in the backseat of a car. It had been a long time for him. A  _long_  time.  _Years_." Shannon glances at the door, leans forward with green eyes twinkling, and says, "He did not last a minute."

"Oh." Carol's amused by the over-sharing.

Shannon sits back in her chair again. "At the time I was just relieved. I didn't know quite what I'd gotten myself into, and I thought, well, at least it will be  _quick_. I can do my wifely duty in a jiffy and get on with my day, and he'll bring home the bacon while I'm laid up the first few weeks after the baby."

There were times Carol felt like that with Ezekiel - that quicker sex was better than drawn-out sex. She cared about the King and respected him, so she  _wanted_  to want him. She had hoped all that sexual desire would flare up on their wedding night. It never really did. But it wasn't as if she had anything but worse to compare it to, either. But with Daryl…it all feels so different. Her flesh tingles when he caresses her, and her heart won't stop speeding up when he kisses her.  

Shannon shrugs. "Of course it got better.  _Much_  better, and quickly too. He just needed to gain some control. Want to hear a funny story?"

Carol smiles. "I  _do_." This sure beats twiddling her thumbs alone in her hospital bed, anyway.

"So my mama was worried sick Garland was going to mistreat me and thought I shouldn't marry him, that maybe we should just take our chances on the captain's veto and a life on the outside. I did  _not_. We share a cabin, and it's not that big. After that embarrassing early finish, Garland waited three nights to make another foray. And that one was pretty good, but then two days later, well…it was a lot more than pretty good. And I'm a bit of a screamer when it comes to good sex."

Carol is trying not to laugh, but she can feel a bit of pain her side where she was stabbed.

"Well, Mamma must have thought he was beating me, because she comes running in our bedroom with a kitchen knife, ready to take on the world and Sheriff Garland, and there we are naked as jaybirds, and I had to say – Mama,  _that_  was an orgasm. She got all red and slammed the door shut. She didn't say a word to Garland or Garland to her for a full week."

Carol lets her laugh out.

"Garland was horny as hell once he knew I liked the sex. No surprise that baby came three weeks early. We're trying not to have another one, given the nature of things, and all the orphans already. " Carol wonders if Shannon talks this openly with  _everyone_. "So we've been using the rhythm method and doing  _other stuff,_  you know, when it's the fertile time. You and Daryl are going to have to think about all that once you do start doing the horizontal tango."

Carol chuckles at the word choice. "I don't think I have to worry about that at this point. I'm over fifty. It's been four months since I last had a period."

"Happened to my mother. She thought she was going through menopause and that she was out of the woods, and then, wah-lah! Along comes my little brother. He was twelve years younger than me." She sighs. "Or is. I wonder if he's still alive, surviving somewhere like this. He was in California when it started, with our father, touring UCLA. He was going to maybe go to college there. My mom likes to believe they're both alive, and so she's been trying to stay faithful to my father ever since the Great Sickness started. But she finally agreed to go to the manager's hut for supper tomorrow tonight. He's a younger man. By  _six years_."

"The manager?"

"He manages the fishing and farming. He'll succeed the captain if the captain dies, but I doubt that will ever happen. The captain's much younger, and sometimes I think he's near invincible."

"Your husband isn't second in command?" Carol asks.

"He's third."

There are two raps on the infirmary door, and then it swings open. Sheriff Garland walks in.

"Were your ears burning, baby?" Shannon asks.

"Pardon?"

"I was just talking about you."

"All good things, I hope," he says.

"Only the best."

"Hmmm…." He murmurs doubtfully.

Carol notices immediately that he's well-dressed. He wears a solid black vest over a pressed, white, button-down dress shirt that's tucked into a pair of black pants. A bolo tie of braided black leather is secured around his neck by an ornamental, silver clasp bearing the picture of an eagle. His white Stetson has been brushed free of dirt and his worn, white-and-black calfskin boots switched out for a recently shined pair of black leather dress cowboy boots.

Shannon notices, too. She looks him up and down. "Well  _my_  don't you look handsome. Do we have a hot date I don't know about?"

Garland shifts his weight nervously from one foot to the other. "That divorce settlement was taken off the court docket. Bob and Mary decided to stick together. So Daryl and Carol's trial's been moved up."

"To when?" Shannon asks.

" _Now_. I'm here to get Carol."

Carol's heart thuds with excitement.

The sheriff rocks on his heels. "I wasn't expecting to testify so soon." He closes his eyes. Why does he look so nervous? Carol fully expected him to be as smooth as molasses in the courtroom. He's appeared calm, collected, and confident every moment she's seen him. But now he's gritting down tightly on his teeth, with his eyes shut just as tightly, rocking on his heels, and looking like he's about to lose it.

Shannon steps straight up to him and puts one hand on his arm and the other on his hip. He opens his eyes and looks into hers. "Breathe, baby," Shannon tells her husband. "You've got this." Sheriff Garland inhales a deep breath. "Let it out, honey." He blows the air out in one long stream. "You're going to do  _great_  in that courtroom, Garland. I know you are. Just  _breathe_ , baby."

[*]

The court room is in the old chapel. The altar has been replaced, whether temporarily or permanently, Daryl doesn't know, with a six-foot-long, white folding table and a large, black padded desk chair on wheels. On the table rests a wooden gavel and stand.

The bailiff, Earl, plops Daryl down on one of the short side pews on the stage, facing the bench. Earl then uncuffs him and says, "Might want to run your fingers through your hair or something." Daryl brushes aside his bangs.

A woman, maybe sixty or seventy, walks down the center aisle of the chapel, holding the handle of a black briefcase in her right hand. She wears wire-rimmed glasses, a black skirt, and a pink, ruffled blouse. Her white hair is tied up into a bun. She sets the briefcase on a small card table on the other side of the stage and then sits down in a metal folding chair so that she's facing the judge's bench and Daryl.

"Who's she?" Daryl asks.

"Court reporter," Earl replies. "She can write shorthand."

The woman opens her briefcase and pulls out a yellow legal pad, three pencils, and a handheld pencil sharpener. Without looking at Daryl, she begins to sharpen the pencils.

Earl stands silently by Daryl's pew until the sheriff appears, pushing Carol in a wheelchair, and then the bailiff heads out of the chapel.

"Good afternoon, Sheriff," the court reporter says.

"Afternoon, Marjory."

Carol looks good, Daryl thinks. Her cheeks are rosier than they were yesterday. The sheriff parks her wheelchair by the stage, gives her his arm, and helps her up to the pew, but then he sits between her and Daryl. He sits stiffly, like a starched shirt, and Daryl can feel the nervousness radiating off of him like a choppy wave. He must not be as comfortable in a courtroom as he is in an interrogation room, or maybe every time he sets foot in here, he thinks of the man he convinced the jury to release, the man who came back with an army by night.

Daryl leans over the sheriff to say to Carol, "How ya feelin'?"

"Better. The doctor wants me on bedrest today, but says I can start walking to – "

"- Enough chit chat," the sheriff interrupts. He closes his eyes and breathes out.

Daryl looks at Carol and nods at the sheriff, to silently ask what the hell is wrong with him, and she shakes her head ever so slightly to indicate her concern.

Daryl sinks back into the pew as Earl returns with twelve people in tow. The bailiff walks to the front of the church and gestures to the pews. Six people file into the first pew and six into the second.

"Thought ya said the jury was six people," Daryl whispers to Garland, whose eyes are open now.

"The second row is back-up jurors," Garland explains. "In case any in the front row have a conflict of interest." He looks over the faces in the jury pews and mutters beneath his breath, "Damnit to hell."

"What's the problem?" Carol asks. "Is it a bad pool?"

"I don't do as well with predominantly male juries." There's only one woman in the front row. "And two of the men in the front row lost loved ones in that raid two years ago. They may well be suspicious of someone who wants to be released."

The bailiff walks up onto the stage and announces, "Court is in session. The Honorable Captain John Smith presiding. All rise."

Scurrying sounds drift from the first two pews as everyone scrambles to their feet. Garland again lends his arm to Carol to help her up. The captain emerges from the sacristy, looking fully sober and impeccably dressed for a change, in a dark, Navy dress uniform with black, four-in-hand necktie, and his white-and-black U.S. Navy dress cap perched on his head.

The sheriff removes his white Stetson and toys with it anxiously. The captain rolls back the desk chair, takes a seat – almost filling it with his muscular width as his head rises inches above the back – and rolls it forward. He then picks up the gavel, smacks it two times on the wooden stand, and booms, "You may be seated." As people thud back down into their pews, the captain plucks his hat from his head and sets it on the table.

The bailiff walks up and stands just before the bench and reads from a sheet of paper: "Case number 784." A pencil scratches across yellow paper as the court reporter takes short hand. "Application for release on behalf of Carol Stuart and Daryl Dixon."

Daryl glances down the pew at Carol. He never knew her maiden name was Stuart. They aren't lying about anything anymore, including being married, so she must have told the sheriff her real name. That's not Ezekiel's last name, and it's not Ed's either. "The applicants were discovered on April 14th, in the 7th year of the New Jamestown Settlement, approximately three-and-a-half miles north of the front gates, and entered Jamestown for the purposes of emergency medical care. Jury selection will now commence."

The bailiff walks off the stage and stands in the aisle at the side of the chapel. One of the men in the jury pool is dressed in a navy work uniform of blue-and-gray camo. He has thick, silver hair and dark blue eyes. Daryl notices him because he's staring intensely at Carol, and Daryl doesn't like that one bit. Why is he looking at her like that? Because she's a woman in a camp with too few women? Or is he already silently judging her? "Last one in the first row," Daryl whispers to the sheriff. "He lose family in the raid?"

"No. Shh."

Daryl falls silent.

"Potential jurors, please rise," the captain booms. "And raise your right hands." The jurors rise and hold up their hands. "Do you swear to give full, honest, and truthful answers to any questions you are asked here today?"

"We do," they chorus.

"Please be seated." Bottoms thud onto padded pews. "Juror number one, please rise."

A lanky, blond man rises to his feet.

"Do you know of any conflict of interest, prejudice, or other reason that would disqualify you from service on this case?" The captain sounds like he's done this hundreds of times and that it bores him.

"I've got a Black Jack tournament tonight."

"That's not a reason to shirk the duties of citizenry." The captain turns to Garland. "Any questions for this juror, Sheriff?"

"No questions, Captain."

"This juror is sworn," the captain announces.

"But Captain," the man protests, "I already bought in to the tournament for the whole week!"

"Sit down!" the captain roars, and the blond man sits down abruptly in the pew. "Juror number two, please rise," the captain orders. The only woman in the front row stands. She's pregnant and looks about ready to burst. "Do you know of any conflict of interest, prejudice, or other reason that would disqualify you from service on this case?"

She puts a hand on her belly. "Well, I've been having contractions for about an hour now. They're about ten minutes apart."

"What?" the captain barks. "What are you doing here, then?"

"I was told the fine for not showing up for jury selection is twenty percent of one week's rations," she replies.

The captain huffs and shakes his head. "You didn't really think we'd fine you if you were popping out a baby, did you?"

"I'm relatively new, sir. I just gained full-admission three weeks ago. I was with that small group found in the high school. This is my first time being summoned. I didn't know."

"Earl!" the captain orders the bailiff. "Get her back to her hut and send for the midwife."

"Yes, Captain."

"There goes the one woman," Garland mutters underneath his breath. Juror number seven, who comes from the second row to fill her vacated spot, is a man.

"Do you know of any conflict of interest," the captain asks the replacement juror, "prejudice, or other reason that would disqualify you from service on this case?"

"None, Captain."

"Good. Any questions for this juror, Sheriff?"

"No questions, Captain."

"This juror is sworn," the captain announces, and the replacement man sits down.

The captain orders the third juror to rise, asks the same question, and receives a "Nope. No reason."

"No reason,  _Captain_ ," the captain corrects him.

"No reason, Captain," the man echoes. "Sir."

"Any questions for this juror, Sheriff?"

"No questions, Captain."

Daryl looks at Garland and then over him at Carol. She returns his gaze as though she has the same thought he does - Why doesn't the sheriff have any questions for these people?  _Should_  he have questions for these people? Is he  _too nervous_  to ask questions of these people?

"Juror number four, please rise."

A forty-something redheaded man stands up.

"Do you know of any conflict of interest," the captain asks, "prejudice, or other reason that would disqualify you from service on this case?"

"No reason, Captain," the man answers. "I'm honored to do my civic duty."

"Any questions for this juror, Sheriff?"

"Yes, Captain." Sherriff Garland answers and rises. Carol and Daryl exchange glances and then return their gazes to Garland as he walks to the center of the stage to look down at juror number four. He seems to have collected himself. He still  _looks_  stiff, but he  _sounds_  calm. "Andy, can you swear, before God almighty, that you have not already decided in your heart to rule against release in this case  _regardless_  of the evidence that is presented here today? Can you say that, and honor the oath you swore in this courtroom today?"

This must be one of the men who lost family in the raid. Andy shuffles in place. He looks down at the dirt floor of the chapel and swallows. "No," he mumbles. "No I honestly can't say I won't be prejudiced."

"I move for dismissal of juror number four," Sheriff Garland announces, "on the grounds of partiality."

The captain picks up his gavel. "Juror number four is dismissed." He slams it on its wooden base. The dismissed juror scurries from the chapel, and juror number eight, a woman from the second row, comes to stand in his place.

"'S good, right?" Daryl whispers as Garland sits back down next to him. "Ya wanted more women?"

"No," Garland whispers back. "She lost her son in the raid. But I'll try to get her dismissed, too."

The captain repeats his routine, the woman answers there's no reason she can't serve, and the sheriff rises to pose the same question he asked of the last juror. But this woman replies, "I can. I believe, whatever my past experiences, that I can and will be fair and impartial in this case."

"The way you impartially wrote the words  _murderous whore_  all over the towels you supplied my wife from the laundry when she first settled here?" Garland asks.

"That was a long time ago, Sheriff."

"I move to dismiss this juror."

"You have no grounds upon which to dismiss the juror," the captain replies. "So long as she swears impartiality."

"Captain," Garland says incredulously.

"Sheriff," the captain replies. "I repeat: You. Have. No. Grounds."

The sheriff sighs and sits down. "This juror is sworn," the captain announces and pounds his gavel. The female juror sits down.

The sixth juror is still looking intensely at Carol. Daryl glances at her and sees she notices. Carol leans forward slightly and squints her eyes to look at him.

The fifth juror is told to rise. "This one lost his brother in the raid," sheriff Garland murmurs. When it's his turn, sheriff Garland asks juror number five the same question he asked the other two who had lost family. Juror number five insists he has no prejudice and is permitted to remain on the jury over Garland's objections.

That makes two people on the jury who lost family in the raid, and one of them seems to have a vendetta against Sheriff Garland because he helped to admit the survivors of the raiding camp. Daryl doesn't see how they can win with a jury like this.

Now it's time for the sixth juror to rise, the one that's been staring at Carol. Daryl eyes him warily.

"Good afternoon, Commander," the Captain says.

"Captain," the man replies.

"Commander?" Daryl asks in a whisper. "He a naval officer?"

"Yes," Garland whispers back. "People in the government are subject to the jury lottery, too. Just not the captain, because he runs the court. Or me, because I investigate and testify."

The captain shoots Garland a warning look, and he falls silent. The captain then returns his attention to the commander. "Do you know of any conflict of interest," the captain asks, "prejudice, or other reason that would disqualify you from service on this case?"

"I think maybe so, Captain," the man replies.

Carol leans forward in the pew and her eyes widen slightly. Daryl looks from her to the man and back.

"And what's that, Commander?" the captain asks.

"I think I might know one of the applicants. That woman there." He points his finger at Carol. "The one the bailiff said is named Carol Stuart. I think I might know her from before the Great Sickness. Long before. In fact, I think maybe we used to date in junior high and high school."

Carol has slid forward almost to the edge of the pew now. "Harold?" she asks. "Harold Harrison?"


	19. The Trial

Daryl wants nothing more than to fly out of this pew and kick Harold Harrison's ass. He wants to smash the man's head through that stained-glass window depicting a dove with an olive branch in its mouth. This asshole, who took Carol to the Dairy Queen on their first date and then broke her heart when she was just sixteen years old, who dumped her because she wouldn't put out.

"I can't believe you're alive, Cary!" Harold exclaims.

_Cary_? Oh no, Daryl does not like that. He does not like that nickname  _at all._

"That you survived all this, and we both ended up here?" Harold asks. "What are the odds of that?”

From his bench, the captain laughs. "Remarkable!" he cries. "Commander, do you think your past relationship will prejudice your judgment in this case?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. I mean," Harold shrugs, "she dumped me and broke my heart, but that was a long, long time ago."

Carol purses her lips into a near frown.

"Is all this true?" the captain asks Carol.

"That we dated, yes. But  _he_  dumped  _me_."

Harold appears confused. "That's not how I remember it at all."

"Well, you must have a faulty memory," Carol says coolly.

"No, I'm pretty sure I remember it distinctly," Harold replies. "I was a madly in love sixteen-year-old boy. We'd been dating three years already, and I figured we'd end up married one day. I wanted so desperately to be closer to you. But you tore my heart out and stomped all over it."

Why isn't Garland interrupting? Why isn't he stopping this? "Object," Daryl whispers.

"Shhh."

"You told me I pressured you too much," Harold continues. "And that you were breaking up with me because you deserved to be treated like a queen."

The captain chuckles at that. "So you're saying you may have a conflict of interest," the captain asks, "based on grounds of overfamiliarity with the applicant?"

"Well," one of the male jurors who has already been sworn says, "sounds like  _overfamiliar_  is exactly what they  _weren't_!"

The captain guffaws, and his laughter reverberates in the rafters of the chapel.

"Stop this!" Daryl hisses angrily to Garland, who just  _sits_  there.

"Because she  _deserved_  to be treated like a  _queen_!" another one of the male jurors roars.

The captain slaps the bench with his hand in laughter.

Harold looks embarrassed by the reaction, but most of the jury pool laughs along with the captain.

Carol's face has turned an unnatural shade of color. Daryl himself is starting to see yellow. He's angry at Harold for putting Carol in this position, angry at the captain and jury for laughing, but he's even angrier at the sheriff for letting this all go on.

Finally Sheriff Garland rises. He strolls toward the bench and holds up a hand until the laughing fades to a stop. "Captain," he says, "I move to strike the  _entire_  jury pool for this outburst. It's clear the pool has been poisoned against the applicant."

The captain sits back in his desk chair and bounces in place. He laughs, sharply, once, but then says, "This  _is_  a bit of a mess, isn't it?"

"I apply for a fresh pool of jurors," Garland insists.

"Well, you have that right based on the current situation." The captain picks up his gavel and says, "Motion granted." He slams his gavel down on the stand. "This jury pool is dismissed."

Daryl's anger at the sheriff dissipates like mist. Garland was waiting to object  _on purpose_. He wanted a scene. He wanted something that would pollute the entire jury pool, so he could throw the dirty water out.

[*]

Court is temporarily adjourned so the next twelve jurors in the lottery can be rounded up and jury selection can continue. The court clears out, except for Daryl, Carol, Garland, and the bailiff.

"Why don't you go on home and take a rest, Earl?" Garland tells the bailiff. "I'll get Daryl back to his cell. But if you would, stop by the garden and ask Shannon to come get Carol to bring her to the infirmary."

"Why?" Carol asks as Earl leaves. "How long is this going to take?"

"A while," Garland tells her. "The potential jurors have to be located and gathered from work – the fields, the docks, the ships…But it will give me more time to practice my opening statement."

"Ya a'ight, man?" Daryl asks. "Ya seemed a little nervous up there."

"I just don't like public speaking," Garland says.  

"Ya seem so calm interrogatin' people."

"That's different. It's just…it's different. But don't worry. I'll be fine."

"Think this next jury will be better?" Carol asks.

"I sure hope so," Garland answers. "We wouldn't have won with that one. Not with that woman who blames me for her son's death and hates my wife, and not with that man who still resents my decision to release that spy. And not with someone whose heart you broke."

"That's not how that happened," Carol insists.

Garland glances toward the chapel doorway. "I'm going to go look out and see if Shannon's almost here." The sheriff stands in the doorway with his back to them. He's giving them some privacy and a chance to talk even though he's not supposed to.

Daryl sits down sideways at the end of one pew facing Carol in her wheelchair. "Ya a'ight? After…all that?"

Carol sighs. "You know, the more I think about it…I think maybe I might have actually said that thing to Harold about deserving to be treated like a queen."

"Well ya do!" Daryl insists. "Hell, should of told 'em ya  _are_  a queen now!"

Carol chuckles. But her amusement quickly fades. "That was so humiliating."

"Garland had to let it go on," Daryl mutters softly.

"I know," Carol replies. "I know exactly what he was doing. And it worked."

Daryl puts a hand on the arm of her wheelchair and pulls it close, until their knees are touching. "Missed ya." He stands up and bends down to kiss her better, and she buries her hands in his hair. Their lips press together in hungry need. Daryl cups her face with his hands while she tugs at his hair.

"Two minutes," Garland warns, and their mouths break apart, but they push their foreheads together as they catch their breath.

"I feel so naughty," Carol whispers. "Making out in church."

Daryl smiles. Sometimes he's reminded how tender her heart is, how much innocence still swims beneath the surface shell that has been toughened by years of harsh experience. "I love ya," he whispers. "Meant that when I said it. On the road. Just want ya to know. 'N case…Dunno."

"I know," she assures him. "I love you, too." She kisses him softly, until Garland says, "Time."

[*]

After much pacing, Daryl settles down on his bench in his cell and tries to read. The sheriff has left him _Aesop's Fables._ and he turns to the one Garland mentioned earlier:  _The Lion and the Mouse_.  It tells of a mouse caught beneath a lion's paw that begs to be freed. "Please let me go," the mouse pleads, "and someday I will repay you."

The lion, amused, lets the mouse go. One day, the lion finds itself trapped in a hunter's net. The mouse comes upon the lion and gnaws through the ropes holding down the net, thus freeing the trapped creature.

At the bottom of the short fable is a moral in italics:  _A kindness is never wasted._

Daryl shuts the book and resumes his pacing, feeling like a trapped animal himself.

[*]

Shannon parks Carol's wheelchair outside the barn and helps her into a standing position. They go inside, and as much as Carol hates to admit it, her side aches when she walks. Her horse whinnies happily to see her, and Carol coos to Lancelot while she strokes the stallion's nose. Beside Carol's horse, Freckles neighs. "Daryl misses you, too," she assure the mare.

"They're being well fed," Shannon assures her. "Come on. I've got to get you back to the infirmary. Time for you pain medication."

"I have to get used to the pain."

"Not  _today_  you don't."

Carol insists on walking to increase her stamina, but she only makes it to the exit of the settlement when she has to admit she needs the wheelchair. Shannon wheels her on the path past the fields. When they get to the docks, men whistle from _The Discovery,_ which looks like it's getting ready to set sail.

"Settle down, boys!" a man who is about to board the ship yells up.

The whistling stops suddenly.

The man turns toward them. It's Harold.  

"Hello, Commander," Shannon says.

"Your friend here and I, we used to date." Harold gestures to Carol.

"Is that so?" Shannon asks skeptically.

"It's true," Carol says. "A long time ago."

"8th, 9th, and 10th grade," Harold explains. "I'm sorry, Cary, about what happened during jury selection this morning. I didn't mean to embarrass you."

"Well, you succeeded," Carol tells him.

"I succeeded in embarrassing  _myself_ , too." He smiles so affably that Carol remembers why she used to like him, why she'd write her first name with his last name a thousand times in her math spiral when she was supposed to be doing problems. "But good luck with your case. I hope I didn't ruin it for you."

"You may have helped, actually," Carol admits, "inadvertently."

"I really  _was_  heartbroken when you dumped me," Harold tells her. "I  _know_  I was pressuring you. I know I was. And that's wasn't right. But, damn Cary.  _Three years_."

"I was  _sixteen_ ," Carol replies. "I wasn't ready. But it all worked out in the end, didn't it? With Kimberly Jansen."

"Who?"

Carol rolls her eyes. "The girl you dumped me for because she would put out." Although, to be fair, Carol is no longer  _entirely_  sure who dumped whom.

Harold shakes his head. "Well, I don't remember any Kimberly Jansen but I sure remember you. You were my first love."

"Harold," Shannon says in the voice of a scolding mother, "you are not going to be rekindling any 8th grade romance here, so you can just step right on aside."

A navy man whistles down from the deck on the boat above. "Commander! Daylight's wasting, sir!"

Harold nods to Carol and then goes to board the boat.

"Garland likes Harold,” Shannon says.

"Really?"

"Well, he doesn't  _like_  him. That's not the right way to put it. Garland doesn't really like other men. He doesn't have a lot of what you'd call  _friends_. He  _ranks_  them. And he thinks Harold is the most competent of all the navy men. I can't believe you two  _dated_."

 [*]

When court resumes three hours later, Garland only objects to two jurors, one of whom is dismissed. By the time six jurors are selected, shards of colored light are bathing the pews in pretty patterns as the rays of the sinking sun penetrate the stained glassed windows.

The captain closes the court for the day, saying they'll reconvene first thing in the morning. The chapel clears out, except for Daryl, Carol, and Garland, who has sent the bailiff to get Shannon. "I like our chances better with this jury," Garland tells the couple.  “It’s more balanced. Three men. Three women.”

"But that kid, the one looks 'bout fifteen?" Daryl asks. "He lost his dad in the raid?"

"He's seventeen," Garland replies. "That's the youngest you can be and still serve on a jury. He might really be impartial like he claims. His girlfriend is one of the orphans from the raiding camp. The trial should take two hours in the morning, and we might have a decision by evening. If not, then by the next morning at the latest."

Carol and Daryl exchange hopeful glances.

Garland returns to the doorway again, his back to them, to "watch" for Shannon, and the couple takes the opportunity to steal a few more kisses.

[*]

It's after sunset when Carol finally gets dinner in the infirmary. Shannon brings it to her.

"Do you think we'll win this case?" Carol asks.

"Garland said he likes the jury."

"What about the captain?" 

"Well, the captain's a bit of a wild card," Shannon replies. "He did catch some flak for signing off on the release that lead to the raid. And even though we were admitted here, my people were not well received at first by everyone, as you can imagine. We got some very nasty, negative attention the first month we were settled here."

"The incident with the towels came up in the courtroom," Carol says. "That woman would have been on our jury, if Garland hadn't gotten the entire pool thrown out.

"Oh.  _Cassandra_. I  _know_  she was angry," Shannon mutters. "She lost her son and had every right to be angry, but I didn't kill anyone. And  _whore_? Because I married a good man? That does  _not_  make me a  _whore_." She sighs. "Or maybe the insult hit a little too close to home. My motives for marrying  _were_  mercenary at first."

"Listen," Carol tells her, "thank you for calming Garland down. He was good in that courtroom, just like you told him he would be."

"Oh, honey, you don't have to thank me for loving my husband. That just comes natural. But you might want to thank me for the  _fantastic_  blow job I'm going to give him tomorrow morning to relax him before the trial."

 [*]

"How ya feelin'?" Daryl asks the next morning when Shannon parks Carol's wheelchair by the side pew where he already sits. Shannon walks to the back of the chapel to talk to Garland.

"I walked from the infirmary to halfway down the docks before I started aching," Carol replies. "I had to have Shannon wheel me the rest of the way. But I  _am_ getting better."

"Sheriff looks a lot more relaxed today," murmurs Daryl, nodding to the back of the church.

Carol covers her mouth to stifle a laugh.

"So funny?" he asks.

"Nothing," she says and falls silent as the bailiff begins to lead the jury in and Garland returns to sit between them.

The bailiff orders all to rise. Everyone in the courtroom is sworn-in at once, and the captain asks Daryl to approach the bench. He does, cautiously.

"Is it correct that you are, of your own accord, applying for immediate release from Jamestown?" the captain asks.

"Yeah," Daryl mutters. "Am."

"I am,  _Captain_ ," the captain corrects him.

Daryl has to stop himself from growling. Forcing his voice to sound as deferential as it is capable of sounding – which isn't very – he says, "I am, Captain."

"And is it correct that you are applying for immediate release from Jamestown  _in order_  to return to your own camp?"

"I am…Captain."

"You will be called back for jury questioning later, but you may return to your seat now."

The captain calls Carol next, and Garland wheels her to the bench. When asked the same question, she politely replies, "Yes, Captain, sir," sounding very much like cookie Carol to Daryl. "I am."

"And is it correct that you are applying for immediate release from Jamestown in order to return to your own camp?"

"I am, Captain, sir."

"You will be called back for jury questioning later, but you may return to your seat now. Sheriff, approach."

After the sheriff returns Carol to the pew, he approaches the bench.

"Have you completed your investigation and interviews to your satisfaction?" the captain asks.

"I have, Captain."

"And is it true that you recommend this couple for release from Jamestown, without the necessity of any further interview or observations?"

"I do, Captain."

"And is it true, that in your professional estimation, they will pose no threat to Jamestown upon their release?"

"In my professional estimation, Captain, they will not."

"You may now present your evidence to that effect."

The sheriff stands near the bench and faces the jury. He clears his throat more than once before he finally begins speaking, but when he does, he projects well and speaks with seeming confidence:

"There's no question in my mind, and nor should there be in yours after seeing the evidence I will present here today, that Carol Stuart and Daryl Dixon came to Jamestown from two camps near Washington, D.C., camps that are far too far away to be of any threat to us. They made this journey solely for the purposes of spending time together, researching Carol's roots, and scavenging goods. We have nothing to fear from these people, or from their camps, and we should allow them to return home as soon as possible to their families and their people. That is my recommendation."

Sheriff Garland recounts what he has learned in the course of his "interviews" and submits as evidence the ledger page from the Civil War hospital house in Dumfries, the grave rubbing from Staunton, the records from the Jamestown museum's historical archives, and the maps. He calls Thomas, the field medic who stopped Carol's bleeding, to the stand,  _the stand_  being a folding chair near the judge's bench. Thomas testifies that they found Carol stabbed by an escaped convict from Jamestown, and that she was in sincere need of immediate medical attention.

"So she asked to be brought into the gates?" one of the jurors inquires.

"No, she was too injured to talk much at all," Thomas replies.

"So her man – " the juror, a blonde woman, points to Daryl, "asked you to bring her in?"

"No. He asked us to stop her bleeding. The sheriff made the call to have me bring her in to have her treated in the infirmary."

"So they weren't seeking admission to begin with?" a brunette juror asks. "They weren't  _trying_  to get in through our gates?"

"No, not to my knowledge," Thomas replies.

"I can answer that they have not sought admission since they have been here," Sheriff Garland says. "They have sought only to leave."

"Sheriff," the captain warns, "The juror's question was not addressed to you."

"Yes, Captain."

After Thomas steps off the stage, the sheriff calls Dr. Ahmad to the stand, and the doctor tells the jury that Carol was in need of medical care and "nearly died." He says he had the "privilege" to chat with her, and that he thinks she's "sincere in her gratitude for the life-saving assistance of Jamestown" and that she "has no reason to mean us any ill will whatsoever. As much as I would hate to lose such a cheerful patient…" He smiles toward Carol, "I do think we should allow her and…her…friend to return home without the need of any further interrogation.  _However_ , I would  _strongly_  recommend that she stay on until her stitches are removed in four to five days."

“Who would earn rations for them, then, if they stayed on a few more days?" one juror wants to know. "Can Carol work?"

"Well, no," the doctor replies. "I don't recommend she even ride until her stitches are out, let alone do any hard labor, but my understanding is we've confiscated a great deal of supplies from them that are sufficient to compensate for her medical care, room, and board."

"But we only get three-tenths of those supplies!" one juror, a black man in overalls, exclaims. "All 590 of us who weren't there to take them in and get a finder's fee. 1/590th of three-tenths of something ain't shit to us!"

There's a murmur of agreement from the rest of the jury.

"If you're concerned about consumption, Billy," the sheriff interrupts, "then you probably want to vote for  _release_ , because  _release_  would certainly mean they'd be consuming  _less_  than if they stayed on for further interrogation or observation. If they're released, they won't be  _here_  to  _consume_. And if Daryl is left under lock and key longer to be interrogated, he won't only be consuming, but he won't even be working."

"Sheriff!" the captain warns brusquely. "You're on thin ice with that line of address. Once again, the juror's question was not addressed to you."

"Yes, Captain."

Dr. Ahmad is dismissed from the stand when there are no further questions from the jurors.

"Are there any more juror questions for the sheriff?" the captain asks.

"What makes you so confident," the seventeen-year-old who lost his father asks, "that they won't come back with their entire alliance and try to invade us?"

"Because their alliance is prosperous already," Sheriff Garland answers. "As is evidenced by the quality of their horses and saddles and horse shoes. And it would be a long journey and a great risk to invade us for a reward they don't even  _need_  to survive. Their alliance is spread out over four camps, and it still totals fewer people than us. They couldn't send enough people here to defeat us even if they wanted to, and they aren't desperate enough to want to."

"How do you know they're telling the truth about that?" the young man asks.

"Because the evidence corroborates their story in its particulars, as I have shown."

"Have you caught them in any lies?" the young man asks.

Garland swallows but speaks calmly. "Yes. They lied to protect their camps before they realized we're not the type of community to raid camps."

"Then how do you know they're not lying now?" the brunette juror asks.

"I recorded a private conversation between this couple that indicated they had been lying to protect their communities."

"And why haven't we heard that tape?" another juror asks.

"I can play a portion of it now."

"You can play the  _whole_  tape, Sheriff," the captain insists as he gestures to the bailiff.

"Before I play this tape," Garland cautions, taking it from the bailiff who has been handling the evidence. "I will warn you that Carol does admit to lying on it. Don't allow that to prejudice you. Listen carefully to the conversation and observe  _why_  Carol says she lied."

After playing the whole tape, the Sheriff rewinds. "I want to highlight this particular part for you again." It takes him a bit of squeaking forward and back to find it, but he does:

_I told him our camp had about five hundred people_ , comes Carol's voice from the recorder,  _because we know Jamestown has six hundred. I figure that this way, they'll feel the Kingdom is a good match and not worth the risk of invading us, and we can keep our people safe, in case these people aren't really as friendly as they appear to be_.

The sheriff clicks the tape player off. "As you can hear, the only reason for their lies was to protect their people, the very same way we would seek to protect our people. But they don't want to raid us, and we don't want to raid them."

There are no more questions for the sheriff, and so Carol is called to the witness stand. "Wish me luck," she murmurs to Daryl as Garland wheels her out.

[*]

"Are you really the leader of your camp?" a bald, male jurors asks.

"Yes, I am," Carol answers.

"But you're a woman!" he exclaims.

It suddenly hits Carol that there are no female leaders in Jamestown. From the captain to the manager to the sheriff to the commissioned naval officers - everyone she's seen or heard about in any kind of position of authority has been a man. Women can serve on juries, clearly, and that gives them some influence in decision making, but every authority figure here is a man. The world Carol lives in – where she leads the Kingdom, and Michonne leads Alexandria, and Cyndie leads Oceanside, and where Maggie once lead the Hilltop….it would be absurd to them. They wouldn't believe it if she said it.

So she gives them an answer that is truthful but incomplete. An answer that she thinks will comfort them. "Well, my husband was the ruler of our camp. He was regarded as their king, and because I married him, I was regarded as their queen. So when he died, I became the sole leader."

"Oh," the man says. "That makes more sense."

"Oh!" the blonde female juror exclaims. "So  _that's_  why you could just leave and go on a road trip? Because you're kind of a figurehead? And someone else is really running the place?"

"There is someone else running the place in my absence," Carol tells her, which is also the truth, even if it's a carefully worded truth.  

The jurors nod, like it all makes sense now.

"But why would you take the risk of cannibals and bandits and the road just for some family souvenirs?" the black man in overalls asks.

Carol observes he has a wedding ring, so she gambles he knows something about love. "That wasn't the only reason I took this trip," she says, glancing at Daryl who still sits on the pew. "I wanted a chance to spend some time alone with an old and dear friend, a man I love, so that we could have a chance to clarify our relationship."

"And did you clarify it?" the blonde juror asks.

"Yes, I think so. We're together now."

"So you're engaged?" the blonde asks.

Carol opens her mouth and then closes it again. "We're together," she repeats.

"Not till he puts a ring on it, sweetheart," the brunette juror says, and the blonde juror laughs.

"Order!" The captain slams his gavel.

The laughter fades.

"Do you have a lot of weapons?" a juror asks.

"Fewer than Jamestown," Carol answers honestly.

"Do you have any family back home?" the brunette asks.

"I have an adopted son."

"You  _left_  your  _son_  for a  _road trip_?" the blonde juror exclaims.

"He's grown. He's a young man now." Carol doesn't tell them he's only sixteen. "He lives in another camp in the alliance now, to be near his girlfriend, but we see each other when we can. I'm anxious to get back because we're supposed to be seeing each other in May. He's coming home for a visit, and I admit I've been feeling like a bit of an empty nester." She looks at the gray-haired woman when she says this, hoping she's had children grow up and can relate. The woman nods.

"Just the one son?" the bald man asks. "No other relatives?"

"There are children in my camp I consider to be nieces and nephews, men and women that are like brothers and sisters to me."

The jurors questions fly like a barrage of arrows, and then come to a sudden stop. Carol, relieved, returns to her spot near the pew.

[*]

Daryl is called up for questioning next, and he's nervous. He's not sure he can be as smooth as Carol was.

"Why don't you and Carol live together in the same camp, if you're a couple?" the brunette juror asks.

"Uhh…" Daryl's eyes flit to Carol and then back. "Ain't been a couple that long. Mean, been good friends forever. Just ain't been…more 'n friends."

"She said they just hooked up on the trip here," the seventeen-year-old male juror reminds the woman.

"But now you'll be settling in the same camp?" the brunette asks.

"Uh….Dunno."

"I mean, you're not the leader of your camp, right?" she asks.

"Nah."

"So you could just leave it."

"Uh…"

"Even if you and Carol were just really good friends," the bald man asks, "why didn't you live in the same community as her? I mean, why wouldn't you want to be in the same camp as your good friend?" He looks around at the other jurors. "That's kind of suspicious, isn't it? I mean, what if they aren't a couple at all and they were just sent as spies from separate camps by their alliance?"

Daryl glances toward the side pew because he doesn't know what to say to that. Garland just mouths –  _honesty_. So he looks back at the jury and says, "'Cause she married someone else, 'n I couldn't stand to see 'er with 'em every damn day." Out of the corner of his eye, he can see a look of pained surprise on Carol's face.

The blonde juror says, "Awwwww."

"Your alliance," the bald man asks, "can other camps enter into it? Or is it closed?"

"Uh…" he glances at Carol, who nods almost imperceptibly. "Guess, other camps  _could_ ," he says. "Mean, if we found other camps wanted to, 'n we trusted 'em, but that alliance was forged for common defense. 'Cause one or the other of us, we'd get attacked."

The young man who lost his father in the raid speaks next. "You said you would get attacked, but did you ever go on the offense against another camp? Did you ever strike first?"

"Nah," Daryl says, although he's not quite sure how to categorize their slaughter of the sleeping Saviors. "Not without provocation."

"What kind of provocation?" the teenager asks.

"Extortion. Tryin' to take everyone's shit."

"You mean," the young man says, "like  _we_  took  _your_  shit when we brought you into Jamestown?"

_Oh….fuck._

What has he done?

Daryl glances to his right at the pew where Carol and Garland sit. Carol winces, and Garland slowly closes his eyes.


	20. Waiting for the Verdict

"Nah," Daryl hastens. "Not like that at all! Y'all helped m'Carol. Saved 'er life. I'd gladly give ya  _anything_  for that.  _Everything_. I'd give you everything I owned in the world for keepin' her alive! What yer people did, ain't  _nothin'_  like what these people did."

Daryl doesn't think about the order of events, doesn't tell the jury that they killed those sleeping Saviors before half the things he's about to say happened, or before he knew about them happening. It's all jumbled up in his mind now, and it comes pouring out:

"These people…they wanted all the other camps to slave for 'em, without givin' 'em nothin' in return. Wanted us to give 'em a tenth of everything we had, not just once, but a tenth of everything we grew or scavenged or made,  _forever_. If ya didn't agree to pay, they'd take a man 'n beat 'em to death right in front of ya, just to send a message. Beat one of my best friends in the world to death. Glenn was a husband. 'Bout to be a  _father_."

The black man on the jury shifts uncomfortably and toys with his wedding ring.

"They shot a teenage boy, just 'cause the Kingdom was short one damn cantaloupe!"

The eighteen-year-old tenses in his seat.

"When they put me in a cell, after they beat m'friend to death, they fed me dog food, not fish and cornbread. Didn't bring me clean clothes. Stripped me naked. Didn't give me books to read. Tortured me with this" Daryl waves a hand by his head. "Painful music. Same damn song. Over 'n over. 'N they were extrotin'  _all_  the camps. Hell, one of the camps, when they wouldn't pay, them assholes killed  _every single man_  in it."

There's a gasp from all of the female jurors and deathly silence after that.

"Do any of the jurors have any more questions for this witness?" the captain asks.

Maybe they're stunned by Daryl's story, but not one even half raises a hand or asks anything else.

"Then this court is adjourned." The captain strikes his gavel on the stand.

Daryl looks around, confused by the abrupt ending. On the T.V. shows, there were always closing statements.

[*]

The jury remains in the chapel for deliberations, and so Garland returns Daryl directly to his cell.

"Did I fuck it up with what I said?" Daryl asks as Garland swings his cell door shut. "On the stand? Did I fuck over the case?"

Garland sighs. "Well…you backpedaled pretty well. There's not a person on that jury who would compare themselves to  _those_  people you dealt with. And you made it pretty clear how grateful you are to us for saving Carol. So…that will help."

"What do ya think our chances are?"

"I don't honestly know," Garland replies. "Seems like the jury could go either way."

"And the captain?"

"On the one hand, he doesn't want to keep supplying y'all food. On the other…he doesn't want a repeat of the raid. But if he just signs whatever the jury rules, he can largely avoid responsibility by saying he went with them."

Daryl plops down with a sigh on his bench. There's nothing to do now but wait.

**[*]**

Shannon drags the folded-up wheelchair behind herself as Carol walks. Carol's still reeling from the court testimony, from what Daryl said about doing anything for her. She already knew it was true, but hearing him  _say_  it like that – it set her heart to racing and fanned her need to be with him.

She's also reeling over what Daryl said about his captivity at the hands of the Saviors. Those were details he never revealed to her, though she did learn, eventually, of his imprisonment. She chose to imagine it as something tamer, or, more accurately, not to imagine it at all.

She doesn't want to think about him, naked and hungry and feeling like he might be going mad in Negan's cell. So instead she asks Shannon, "Do you have any women in your government?"

"The hierarchy is all men," she replies. "The captain's at the top. Then there's the manager, followed by my husband. Next there's your ex-boyfriend. Commander Harold Harrison. He's number four. It goes on down from there, to the lieutenant commander, the lieutenant, and the two lieutenant, junior grades."

"Why no women?"

Shannon shrugs. "I never really thought about it. I've never lived in a camp where it was any other way. The strongest, toughest men are usually the leaders. Isn't that just the world we live in now?"

"It's not the world I live in."

"At least we have a charter here. Consistent ways of doing things. Trial by jury. There's law and order, and, most of the time, justice. People were always stealing from us in my first camp. In the second, the only thing keeping me from rape was my second husband Tyrone. That's why I got with him in the first place. For protection." Shannon looks at Carol a little wide eyed. "Oh God, I  _do_  sound  _mercenary_ , don't I?" Carol doesn't comment. "But he didn't hurt me, and he kept me and my mama alive, until he got himself killed foolishly raiding this place. I  _tried_  to talk him out of it."

"And why did you marry your first husband?" Carol asks.

"That one was for love, when I was fresh out of college, and it ended badly. Five years I gave him, and he cheated on me. So when the Great Sickness started, I was  _already_  unromantic. But they say the third time's a charm."

"Daryl would be my third husband," Carol observes, "if we ever got married. But I don't think he's the marrying kind."

"Seems like the  _staying kind_  though. I mean,  _seven years_? In the Great Sickness? And he's been there for you the  _whole_  time, one way or another?"

Carol smiles. "We've been there for each other. Mostly. He left once, but he came back. And I was  _made_  to leave once. But I came back anyway. And then I  _almost_  left once, but he stopped me. And then I  _did_ leave, but he found me. And then he left, but I visited him. And then…I don't know. It's complicated."

"Sounds like. Are you going to simplify it now?"

Carol laughs. "Maybe."

They walk quietly for a while before Carol ventures a suggestion, trying very hard not to sound judgmental. She knows where she herself has come from, after all. "You might consider learning to protect yourself, so you don't have to rely on a man to do it."

"That's what Garland says. He's been teaching me to shoot better. That's all well and good, but there are more ways to survive than with guns and knives. I haven't made it this long for no reason. I find people easy to manipulate. Most of them, anyway. I thought I was manipulating Garland  _at first_ , but he sees through all my bullshit."

Carol chuckles.

"And Garland's a good and honest man. Those kind…they're almost impossible to manipulate."

When they reach the docks, they run into Harold again. This time he's helping to tie the returning  _Susan Constant_  to a cleat hitch while the fishermen drag down their nets full of still-flopping fish. He greets them both with a friendly smile. "Hey, Shannon. Hey, Cary."

"Hello, Harold," Carol says.

"That man you came with? Daryl? Is he your husband?"

"We're together," Carol replies.

"He just doesn't seem like your type."

"I might have revised my type in thirty plus years. Especially considering that my type didn't exactly work out for me."

Harold frowns, while Shannon laughs and says, "You set her up for that one, Harold."

Carol wasn't even thinking of Harold, though. She was thinking of Ed.

"I guess I did." He takes a step closer to Shannon. "Tell your husband we've got a special poker game Friday night if he wants in. Government men only. On the  _Godspeed_. Buy-in is two ounces of tobacco."

"I'll let him know, but he's busy, Harold. And he's not much for gambling."

"He should  _really_  come. All the commissioned officers will be there. The manager, too."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Shannon asks.

Harold glances behind himself as if to make sure no one is listening, and then he looks back. "Garland seems…aloof to a lot of the officers. Like he's not one of the guys. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"You're saying my husband's a shit schmoozer."

"I wasn't going to put it that way….but…yeah. Him trying to shut down the whorehut, it wasn't exactly popular."

"That place is an STD outbreak waiting to happen," Shannon tells him.

"I know. That's why I never visit it."

"And all along I thought it was your good morals."

Carol observes this exchange silently and curiously.

"It's just not popular," Harold insists, "trying to shut that place down. It's the  _only_  outlet  _most_  of these men have. And then Garland tried to reduce the finders' fees on scavenged goods so more goes in the common pot."

"So?" Shannon asks. "The community has young and old who can't - "

"- I'm not telling you it's wrong, Shannon," Harold insists. "I'm telling you it's not  _popular_ , that Garland's done unpopular things. He testified it was safe to release that spy. And then he called dibs on you."

"Called  _dibs_  on me?" Shannon says, her voice rising. "Garland's the  _only_  one who  _asked_  to marry me. Because none of the rest of y'all wanted to deal with feeding a baby and a mama-in-law."

"I'm just saying he isn't as popular as he  _should_  be in his position. He has the loyalty of his posse, but they aren't in the government. He has to start thinking about the loyalty of the navy men. It's politics, Shannon. You of all people know politics."

Shannon sighs. "I  _do_  know politics. I just didn't know this had become such an issue."

"He just needs to grease a few palms. Be one of the guys every now and then. I'm trying to  _help_. I don't want the rest of the officers persuading the captain to demote Garland one day."

"I get it," Shannon assures him with a sigh. "Garland will be there Friday night. I'll see to it."

Harold nods. "He's  _lucky_  he's got a good handler." He raises his hand slightly to Carol. "Good to see you alive, Cary. Hope you win your case."

"Good to see you, too, Harold," Carol replies, and she's not entirely lying. It's nice to know some piece of that old world has survived.

Carol puts a hand on her side as she walks the rest of the way with Shannon to the museum. She's tempted to ask for the wheelchair, but she doesn't. The walk took more out of her than she expected. Maybe the doctor is right. Maybe she  _will_  pop a stitch if she tries to ride a horse in the next few days.

Shannon takes Carol to the breakroom for lunch. She draws some canned soup out a cabinet and then signs it out on an inventory sheet, opens it, and pours it into a big bowl.

"It's not too long expired?" Carol asks.

"Oh, this is our own stuff we canned last year," Shannon says as she puts the bowl in the microwave. There's a whir as it begins to heat. "Vegetable venison stew."

"You're on the honor system with the inventory?" Carol asks.

"In the breakroom, yes. And in the storehouse. But regular distributions from the pantry are made under the supervision of the manager weekly. And he who does not work does not eat. That's what the  _original_  Captain John Smith said, when Jamestown ran into the problem of freeloaders. Here, you earn your rations, the accountant keeps track, and you don't take more than you earn."

"And people who can't work?"

"Sponsors. Someone else works for them. Like Garland worked for me when I was laid up with the baby. Like we both work to sponsor Terrence now. That's our little orphan. He stays in the museum, but we hang out with him when we can. All the younger orphans have sponsors. The ones over twelve work for themselves."

"Sounds like a lot of work."

Shannon shrugs. "Basic adult rations are only twenty hours a week. It’s less for the kids.”

The microwave beeps and she takes the big bowl out and starts dishing it into smaller bowls. She sets them down with spoons and cups of water, and then sits across the table from Carol. "We can work extra for extra rations, too."

"It's an interesting system," Carol says and blows on the hot soup. "We just expect people to be honest in the Kingdom, work as much as they're able, and work more when there's a need for it."

"And when they don't?"

Carol shrugs. "They get a stern talking to. But mostly they just  _do_."

"Why?"

"Patriotism, I suppose. They love the Kingdom. My late husband…he was a good at whipping up that feeling."

Carol's not sure she's as good at it. She's let some of the ceremonial trappings of the Kingdom fall by the wayside. She always thought they were a little silly and impractical, but maybe they were just smart. Maybe Ezekiel knew precisely what he was doing. She didn't marry a dummy after all. After Ed, she swore she'd never marry an unworthy man again.

Ezekiel was one of the best men she's ever known, along with Daryl and Glenn and T-Dog and a handful of others. And he loved her, and he  _asked_ …Carol wanted to bury the past, so she married him. But what Daryl said in the courtroom yesterday, about not living in the Kingdom because he couldn't  _stand_  to see them together…She didn't know that.

Daryl must have wanted to be with her –  _that way_  - even then. And she didn't know. She  _suspected_ , in the prison, but he never made a move, so she thought she'd misread him, that she'd mistaken deep friendship for romantic interest. And then everything happened to them…and they retreated into themselves, and there was this distance. It seemed like an ocean. Sometimes they'd swim near each other again, reach out, touch hands, and then the tide would rip them apart again.

"If the jury  _doesn't_  rule for release," Carols asks, "what happens? Do I at least get to be with Daryl here?"

"Well, yes, if they rule to give you cleared foreigner status and probationary admission instead of release. No, if they rule for further investigation."

When they finish their lunch, Shannon tells Carol she has to get back to work in the gardens, and then she deposits her in the library, a former office now filled with wall-to-wall bookcases and three comfy arm chairs. On the floor is a large cardboard box marked "Book Return" and another marked "Check-Out Cards."

"I'll come and get you as soon as the verdict's in," Shannon promises.

[*]

Daryl tries to play solitaire and read the second Raymond Chandler novel Garland left him, but mostly he just jumps at every shadow in the entryway to the jailhouse.

Once it's the bailiff, Earl, bringing him lunch.

Then it's Earl coming to clear his lunch tray away.

Next it's Earl come to take him to the outhouse.

Then it's Earl bringing him dinner.

Next it's Earl clearing his dinner tray.

But every time Daryl asks if the jury has made a decision, Earl says, "Not yet."

Daryl builds a house of cards and knocks it down and rebuilds it again. He plays Pyramid solitaire, Klondike, Canfield, and Baker's Dozen. The sun has begun to set and before long, it's going to get hard to see the numbers on his cards.

A shadow darkens the doorway. It's the sheriff, finally, and Daryl scrambles excitedly to his feet.

"Not yet," Garland says. "And at this rate, probably not until tomorrow morning. But I've come to fetch you. My wife insists you not sleep in a cell again tonight. So you'll be on our living room couch. I guess it wouldn't technically be breaking any rules. You'd be under my guard, and Carol is still in the infirmary."

When they get to Garland's cabin, the sun is fully set, but the windows are all aglow with candles and the main room inside is lit by a fire in the hearth.

Daryl takes his boots off by the door, and leaves them on a mud-mat, because that's what Garland's doing, and then he follows him a few steps inside. The main room of the cabin is one big open area off of which the two bedrooms are situated. There's a couch opposite the fireplace, a deerskin rug on the floor, an arm chair, a rocking chair, and a few small end tables big enough for a book or cup. A kettle whistles on the wood stove in the little kitchen nook, which has a hutch, a two-foot long counter, and a four-person wooden table. Copper pots and pans hang on the wall. Shannon plucks up the kettle and pours the hot water in a little china teapot with the strings of two teabags dangling out of it.

"Where's little Gary?" Garland asks her.

"I  _told_  you." She sets the kettle down on a hot pad. "He has that sleepover at Johnny's tonight. You need to listen when I talk."

"I might have a few things on my mind, Shannon."

She begins to dunk the tea bags in the pot up and down. "And Mama still isn't back from her hot date with the manager, so maybe that bedroom's going to be free tonight. Daryl can have her bed."

"I don't think your mother wants a strange man sleeping in her bed."

"Well what my mother doesn't know won't hurt her." Shannon puts the cap on the teapot and draws three teacups from the hutch.

Daryl looks around the cabin and sees a shotgun and three rifles in a gun rack above the mantle, no doubt unloaded because of the climbing toddler. He wonders, out of habit, where they keep the ammo, even though he's not planning on killing anyone or stealing anything. He also wonders where they're keeping his crossbow.

"You don't really think your mother is spending the night there, do you?" Garland asks.

"Well why not?"

"The woman is almost  _seventy-five_."

"Older women have urges, too, Garland." Shannon pours the tea in two cups. "Daryl, sugar, you want some tea?"

"Yes, ma'am," he answers. Daryl doesn't know where the ma'am comes from. He certainly heard it often enough growing up in Georgia, but he was never taught to talk that way, not by his crass parents, and when the teachers tried to make him say it, he flat out refused as an act of spite. After a while, the teachers decided it wasn't worth the fight. But right now it just flows out of him. Maybe it's the quaint, homey setting. Maybe it's Shannon's cheerful southern accent, which isn't Virginian. One of the Carolinas, Daryl guesses.

"You want some honey in it?"

"Y'all got honey?" Daryl asks.

"Oh, yeah, we keep bee hives out behind the Indian Village," Shannon tells him. "Little Gary  _loves_  to chew on the honeycombs. I'll put a little in your tea."

"Carol a'ight?" Daryl asks as she hands him his cup of tea.

"She ate well," Shannon replies. "And I left her reading in the library. Oh, that reminds me, baby," she turns to Garland, "Harold says there's a poker game Friday night on the  _Godspeed_ , and you need to play."

Daryl takes a sip of the tea. His taste buds explode from the honey. It's not as sweet, but it's better than those pixie sticks.

"I'd rather spend that time  _relaxing_  at home," Garland replies.

"Well, too, bad," Shannon says, "because I'm not going to be  _relaxing_  you. You have to schmooz. Be political. Apparently you aren't popular enough with the officers."

"Upholding the law isn't a popularity contest."

"Unfortunately, Garland," Shannon tells him, "it kind of is. You're going, and you're laughing at all their crude jokes, and you're drinking, and you're going to be one of the boys."

Daryl scans the cabin some more and sees a box of shotgun shells on the top shelf of the bookcase, resting on the 1992 and 1996  _Gun Digests_.

"You know they have a couple of the whores come to those games?" Garland asks. "To serve them drinks.  _Topless._  In exchange for a few drinks of their own."

"Well I don't care if you  _look,_  Garland, as long as you don't  _touch_."

"It's  _undignified_."

"Oh, you're going to say  _that_?" Shannon asks. Daryl sips his tea and wonders how he can escape being witness to this unraveling argument. "You're going to say  _that_ , when I told you I worked in a topless bar to put myself through college? Philosophy degrees don't pay for themselves!"

"That's for damn sure," Garland says.

Daryl snorts. He doesn't mean to, but he does, and then quickly fills his mouth with tea to pretend it was swallowing the tea wrong that made him snort.

Fortunately, Shannon laughs. "That's a good one, baby." She plucks up her tea cup, slaps Garland on the ass, and then walks over to the couch, where she sits down and puts her bare feet up on a hassock and pats the cushion next to her. Garland joins her and invites Daryl to take the arm chair, which he does, uneasily.

Garland sighs and leans back against his wife's shoulder, and she kisses the top of his head. "You're going to win this case," she tells him. "Because you're just that good."

"You're just stroking my ego," Garland replies.

"I am, but your ego's real easy to stroke. You know why?"

"No, why?" Garland asks.

"Because I actually believe eighty-five percent of the compliments I give you."

Garland chuckles.

Daryl slurps his tea down to the lees.

"I've never seen anyone pound tea like that," Garland says.

"Well Daryl just loves my cooking," Shannon says.

"I wouldn't call brewing tea  _cooking_ ," Garland tells her.

"It's not like I see you doing a whole lot around this cabin."

"Or I you," he replies. "Your mother does it all."

"You know you're right. We  _can't_  let her fall in love with the manager. If she does, she'll move in with him, and we'll have to do it all ourselves."

Daryl feels like he's invading on a domestic scene where he doesn't belong, and he wonders if this is what married life is like, if this is what Carol  _wants_  their lives to be like someday – fighting, quickly making up, sitting around the fire, teasing each other, drinking tea. It might not be so bad, he thinks, as long as he could hunt all day first.

Of course Carol doesn't have a fireplace in those chambers in the school. They have electric heat. He'd want a fireplace, he realizes, and a deerskin rug like Garland's. Or better yet - a bearskin rug. And Dog would curl up on it at night and fall asleep while he and Carol made out on the couch.

He'd want a cabin, like this, too…or not like this, exactly, not this wattle-and-daub-type place, but a good, sturdy, old-school  _log_  cabin, one he built with his own hands for Carol. And he'd want to hang his crossbow above the mantle, the way Garland's hung his guns.

Hell, who's he kidding? He'd never remember to hang up his crossbow.

But he doesn't want Carol's chambers in the Kingdom, he realizes. He wants  _her_ , but he doesn't want  _her life_. And she probably doesn't want his life, either, but maybe…maybe they can figure out how to build  _their life_  together.

"…Daryl?"

Shannon's repeating some question he missed.

"What?"

"I said goodnight. I have to be in the gardens early tomorrow." She stands, trails her fingers over Garland's shoulders as she walks behind the couch, and says, "'Nite, baby."

"Goodnight, Beautiful." Garland stretches his neck back and looks up at her to accept her goodnight kiss.

The sheriff waits for the bedroom door to click shut to stand and go fish something out from the hutch. He returns with the two glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniels with about two ounces left in the bottom.

"I don't know about you," the sheriff says, "but waiting for this verdict has got me on edge. I need a drink." He sets the two empty glasses on the end table. "I can never sleep the night before a really important verdict."

"Why's it so important to ya?" Daryl knows why it's important to  _him_ and Carol, of course, but not why the sheriff cares so very much about their case.

"Because if they release you, it means I've finally earned back the trust I lost when I recommended we let that spy go. And it means we've finally moved on, as a people, from that dreadful night. And if they don't…" Garland sighs and begins to pour, one ounce in each glass.

The bottle, Daryl sees now, is one of the ones he and Carol found in the house in Dumfires. "Looks familiar," Daryl grumbles.

Garland sets the empty bottle down and hands Daryl a glass. "Yes, sorry, it was yours." He picks up the other glass. "Those last two ounces were my share of the finders' fee on the alcohol after it all got divvied up. Well, that and one bottle of wine, but I'm saving that for when Shannon's mad at me." He raises his glass. "Cheers."

Daryl clicks the sheriff's glass with his own and sips. Damn it's good. What a shame he won't be taking that whole bottle home to the Hilltop. But he'd much rather be taking a living Carol. Daryl's irritated they've been plundered and put on trial just to go home, but he also knows other camps do  _far worse_  to strangers on sight. They could have been shot on sight. They could have been tortured. They could have been cooked and eaten. Worst of all, Carol could have been taken and abused for the men's pleasure.

He's glad they've been fed and that Carol's been healed. He wasn't lying when he said he'd have paid it all for her.

Crossbow, too.

And the horses.

Even Dog, if Dog were here.

_Anything._

It hits him, suddenly, that she's the center of his world.

"Hey," he says. "Them boxes of jewelry ya said y'all have? Could I uh…maybe take a look?"

The sheriff smiles. He throws back the rest of his whiskey. "Let's go pick your girl out an engagement ring."


	21. The Verdict

By the light of an oil lamp, Garland leads Daryl out of the cabin toward a storehouse. Torches light the corners of the settlement, and a night patrolman roams the perimeter. The lights are on in some cabins, and out in others. A teenage boy and a teenage girl are kissing in the open doorway of the one-room school house.

The storehouse is a long, brick building with wall-to-wall and ceiling-to-floor shelving, as well as shelving down the middle. "Y'all loot the whole county at the start?" Daryl asks.

"The navy men did. Of course, not much is of use anymore." He points to a box marked  _D Batteries_. "Half of those don't work, for instance, and you never know until you try one." He draws out a huge cardboard box marked  _rings_. "Of course you find uses for things. Like I said, we melt or break jewelry down when we need the metal. We use bits of diamond in grinding wheels. Excellent abrasive." He opens the box and shines the light over it. Diamonds glitter and twinkle. Daryl crouches down and starts digging.

Eventually Daryl admits, "I ain't got no idea what she'd want."

"Well, I don't know Carol, but I'm usually pretty good at reading people. My guess is a simple solitaire."

"Ezekiel gave her a big ass diamond."

"That her first husband?"

"First one treated her right, anyway." Daryl rakes through the pile of rings, overwhelmed by all the choice.

"Well, I wouldn't play copycat if I were you. She's not re-marrying Ezekiel. It needs to make her think of  _you_ , not  _him_."

Daryl's fingers freeze suddenly. He saw a flash of a ring, with something familiar on its surface, but now it's gone. Where did it go? He digs frantically. "Hold the light closer." Garland does, and Daryl sifts through the rings until he sees it again – a flash of silver, blue, and white. He seizes it and holds it up to the lamp light. "Hell yeah."

"That's a cameo ring. That's not an engagement ring."

"Is now," Daryl says. The ring is a thick band of sterling silver, and the cameo set in its center is made from some blue material – coral, perhaps – and carved out of that blue background, and painted a bright white – is a Cherokee rose.

[*]

Daryl spends most of the night trying – but failing – to sleep on Garland's couch. He finally drifts off only to awake an hour later, in the early morning, to the sound of Shannon's moaning and her cry of "Yes, Garland, baby, yes!"

He drifts off to sleep again, and when he wakes up, it's because he feels a presence by the couch and hears a  _click_. Daryl sits up abruptly and reaches instinctively for the knife that's not on his belt. Garland stands snapping a silver revolver into his holster. He's dressed for court, with that weird tie that's not a necktie but a leather cord with a silver eagle.

"Shannon's dropping Carol off at the court on her way to work," Garland says. "The jury won't arrive for a while. We'll be the first ones there. You'll have a moment alone with Carol. I'll keep watch at the chapel door." He looks Daryl over. "But you might want to wash up first. And comb that hair. I've got a decent shirt you can borrow, too."

[*]

Sheriff Garland blocks the chapel door, his back to the pews. Carol is already sitting in the side pew on the stage, ready for court, when Daryl walks down the center aisle, over the dirt floor of the chapel, through the misty haze of multicolored early morning sunlight streaming through the windows.

He mounts the stairs. One step. Two steps. His right hand is buried deep in his pocket, where his fingers nervously turn the cameo ring in circles. He comes to a stop before her and swallows, but he can't make the words form.

Carol smiles. "You look handsome. Did you borrow a shirt?"

"Mhm."

"Your hair's nice. Did you brush it?"

"Mhmh."

"You want to be naughty in church?" she teases.

"Nah." He glances down the aisle to Garland, who still stands with his back to them. He better make this quick. Not just because the captain and jury are coming, but because it'll be less painful that way, like ripping off a bandaid.

_She might say no._

It's not the first time he's thought of the possibility, but it slaps him now, hard.

_She might say no._

"You're really nervous about this verdict, aren't you?" Carol asks.

"That ain't it."

"Well, you sure don't look confident they're going to release us."

"I ain't, but I ain't worried 'bout that." He looks into her eyes finally. "Ain't worried 'bout that 'cause yer alive. 'N I'm alive. And we're together, even when we ain't. 'N if we get out today, or next week, or we gotta live and work here for months …don't really matter, as long as we're together. 'S all that matters to me." He breathes out. "I wanna…wondered…" He tries to pull the ring out of his pocket. It snags on the edge, and he yanks it and drops it, and it goes rolling under the pew. "Shit," he mutters.

Daryl gets down on his hands and knees and digs under the pew until he grabs it, wrapping it in the palm of his hand. When he tries to pull back up, his head thuds the bottom of the pew, and he curses. Finally he gets his head out and his torso up. He never planned to get down on one knee--he's not that kind of guy--but now he's down on  _two_ , kneeling before her.

He unravels his palm to reveal the ring. "Wanna wear this?" Those aren't the right words, but they're the words that come out.

Carol carefully takes the ring from his palm and turns it over. She gasps when she sees the Cherokee rose in the cameo, and nods. "Yes. Yes. I want to wear it." She slides it on her ring finger. She has to push hard and it doesn't go quite all the way down and now it's jammed on there.

"Ain't gonna come off easy," he says.

"I don't want it to come off," she tells him. "I don't ever want it to come off." She puts her ringed hand tenderly on his cheek, leans down, and kisses him.

"Captain coming!" Garland calls, and Daryl scurries to his feet. He plops down on the pew, and Garland turns and paces down the aisle toward them. He's seated between them before the captain enters.

"Too damn early for work, Gar!" the captain shouts.

"Sure is, Captain. Sure is."

"You coming to the poker game Friday night?" The captain is up on the stage now.

"I don't know. I've been very busy."

"Everyone who's anyone is going to be there. The boys are excited. I've hired bar service, if you know what I mean."

"Mhmhm," Garland murmurs.

"You're not going to let your wife whip you into staying home on a Friday night are you?"

"Jury's coming," Garland says.

The captain retreats to the sacristy until all the jury is seated and then told again to rise, and then he strolls out solemnly, rolls back his chair, takes his seat, and intones, "All may be seated."

Bottoms thud into wooden pews.

Daryl runs the palms of his hands nervously from his thighs down to his knees and back. He's tingling all over, not so much in anticipation of the verdict, but in excitement over Carol's acceptance of the ring. Of course, he forgot to say the whole  _Will you marry_   _me?_  part.

_Shit._

They might not be engaged.

But by the way she was acting, they  _might_  be.

"Juror number one," the captain intones, "please rise."

The gray-haired woman in the jury rises.

"Have you reached a verdict?"

"We have, Captain."

"And what is your verdict?"

Carol clutches her hand and caresses the carving of the Cherokee rose with the tip of her thumb.

The jury woman unfolds a slip of paper that must have been folded six ways, because it takes a long time. Then she says, "Our verdict in the application for release of Carol Stuart and Daryl Dixon is conditional."

"Hell's that mean?" Daryl hisses.

"Listen," Garland replies.

"And what are the conditions for release?" the captain asks.

"That means we  _are_  being released?" Carol whispers.

"Listen," Garland repeats.

"The applicants will have their horses and weapons returned to them, and will be released from Jamestown on Sunday morning, at sunrise," the jury woman reads. Daryl's pretty sure it's Tuesday, which means that, counting tonight, they have five more nights here before they can go home. But they're  _going_  home. "Provided," the juror continues, "the following conditions are met: One, Daryl Dixon provides eight hours of daily labor in exchange for his rations and Carol Stuart's rations for the remainder of their residence at Jamestown. Due to her injury, Carol Stuart will not be expected to work. Two, lodging is provided for the couple at the sheriff's cabin or at his expense, since he applied for their release."

That's good Daryl thinks, it means he'll be out of that cell for good and, more importantly, he and Carol will be together.

"Three, no further evidence arises between now and Sunday morning to indicate that either applicant or their camps is a threat to Jamestown. Four, neither applicant violates any law while in residence at Jamestown. Five, Carol Stuart has had her stitches removed and been given a recommendation of fitness to travel by Dr. Ahmad. Those are our conditions, and that is our verdict, Captain."

Daryl's beginning to feel relieved, but it still remains to be seen if the captain will veto the ruling. At the moment, the big man is looking at his pocket watch. The captain slides it back into his pocket and gestures with his hand. Earl, the bailiff, takes the paper from the juror and brings it to the bench.

The captain reads the paper over, scratches his head, and then reaches to his left to remove a feathered quill pen from an ink well. "Verdict approved," he announces and scrawls his signature across the page. "Sheriff, attend to the details." He slaps the quill back into the inkwell, pushes the paper to the edge of his bench, and picks up his gavel. "This court is adjourned. All jurors are to return to their jobs." He slams the gavel down on the wooden base, rolls back his chair, and hastens from the church.

Carol laughs in relief as the jurors rise, mingle, talk, and begin to disperse from the courtroom. When the Sheriff stands and steps away from his position between them, she slides across the pew and kisses Daryl happily.

"Not bad," Sheriff Garland says when they pull apart. "I know you'd much rather leave this very hour, but Shannon and I will put you up nicely. And it's probably for the best Carol get those stitches professionally removed and not risking them popping out on the road."

"Thank you, Sheriff," Carol tells him. "We're grateful for your support."

"A kindness is never wasted," Garland says. Daryl recognizes those words: the moral from  _The Lion and the Mouse_.

[*]

While Shannon takes Carol to get her settled in the cabin, Garland walks with Daryl to the docks to get him started on his work day. "I assume you can efficiently clean and gut a fish?" the sheriff asks.

"Yeah." They walk past a man pushing a cart full of firewood. "Ain't complain'," Daryl says, "just clarifyin', but…. I gotta work eight hours a day total? Or eight hours a day for  _each_  of us?" He doesn't want to labor for sixteen hours a day for five days straight, but of course he will, if that means feeding Carol while she's too sore to work.

"Eight hours  _total_ of course."

Daryl's relieved, because that also means he'll be able to spend most of the day with Carol. "Any weird laws I oughta know 'bout? So I don't accidentally break one 'n get stuck here?"

"Just the usual. No murder. No theft. No rape. No assault. You'll have free range of the settlement, village, docks, and museum. Just don't go out the front door. And, to be safe, don't go anywhere you don't have a reason to be."

"A'ight."

"So….did Carol say yes?" Garland asks.

"Think so," Daryl mutters.

"You  _think_  so?"

"She took the ring."

**[*]**

Shannon introduces Carol to her mother, Bonnie, a white-haired, seventy-something woman whose green eyes bear a striking resemblance to her daughter's. During the very brief tour of the cabin, Shannon's son Garland, Junior, whom she calls Gary, toddles around after them babbling.

"And this is where you'll be staying," Shannon says as she steps inside a bedroom that has just enough room for a double-sized bed, a long dresser, and a wardrobe. "Gary stays with his grandma."

Carol spies a wash basin and pitcher on the dresser and a stack of clean washcloths and hand towels. The bed is neatly made, and her and Daryl's backpacks are resting on the surface of the blanket, though they look much lighter now, having been emptied, no doubt, of much of their loot.

One of Carol's sheathed knives is lying sideways in front of her pack. She walks over and runs her fingers over the familiar, worn leather. "I thought we weren't getting our weapons back yet?"

"Just the knife." Shannon plucks up Gary, who is trying to climb up onto the bed, and plants him on her hip. "And don't worry, my Mama put fresh, clean sheets on that bed while y'all were in court. Let Daryl know. I think he might have heard me and Garland going at it this morning. He stayed on the couch last night."

"We're not taking your bedroom," Carol says as she snaps her knife to her belt. She assumed they'd be sleeping on the floor in the living room.

"Sure you are. It'll be a lot easier getting in and out of that bed with your stitches than getting up and down from the floor. Besides, I've always wanted to sleep with Garland in front of the fireplace. Now I have an excuse."

Carol smiles. "Well, thank you."

As Shannon leads Carol back into the living room, she glances down at Carol's finger. "That's a pretty ring."

"Wing!" Gary echoes, and Shannon sets him down. He toddles off and climbs up onto the couch.

Carol smiles and caresses her Cherokee rose cameo. "Yes. Daryl gave it to me. I think he meant it as an engagement ring."

Shannon laughs. "You  _think_?"

"Well, he's not very good with words."

"It's not your typical engagement ring."

"It means something special to both of us." Sophia's story is not one Carol shares easily with anyone, and she certainly doesn't share it now. She says, simply, "It was the first flower Daryl ever gave me."

"Now  _that's_  romantic. Garland could learn a thing or two about wooing from your beau."

Carol snorts. "I can't  _wait_  to tell Daryl that." And she won't have to wait long. In eight hours, they'll be together, and in five days, they'll be headed home.

[*]

The air reeks of raw fish. A man and a woman descale and gut smallmouth bass on a picnic table in the grassy area alongside the docks. "Michael, Samantha, this is Daryl," Garland tells them. "He'll be working with you today."

The sheriff reaches into the inside pocket of his vest and pulls out a worn, brown leather sheath that Daryl recognizes well. "That one of my knives?"

"You'll need it for work," Garland says.

Daryl takes the sheath, clips it to his belt, and feels instantly better to be armed. When Garland leaves, Michael tosses him a bass, which slides from Daryl's hands when he tries to catch it and slithers into the grass. Samantha laughs.

"Toss the clean ones in that cooler when you're done," Michael says, pointing to a long blue ice chest.

Daryl recovers the fish, lays it on the table, and unsheaths his knife with a twirl.

"Show off," Samantha says with a smile.

"Can you  _not_  flirt with the new guy, please?" Michael asks. "I'm standing  _right here_."

Daryl makes quick work of the fish, avoids looking at or talking to Samantha, tosses it in the cooler, and then reaches for another. He goes through the same process again two more times.

"Slow down, man," Michael tells him. "If we finish all these, we don't get off work early. We just have to do something else."

Daryl glances up at him. "So?" That just means more work gets done, as far as he's concerned. But he knew plenty of guys like Michael when he was roaming with Merle and working odd jobs. They'd spend a lot of time leaning on shovels, sitting on buckets, taking smoke breaks, bathroom breaks, coffee breaks, and shooting the breeze. Hell, so would Merle.

About fifteen minutes later, Michael says, "Seriously,  _slow down_. You're going to make us look bad if we get twice as much done today with only one extra person."

Daryl relents and scales the next fish more gingerly, not that he saves any more flesh that way.

Bootsteps still on the dock not far from their table, and Daryl looks up. Carol's high school sweetheart, Harold Harrison, stands in his blue-and-gray camo Navy working uniform.

"Hello, Commander," Samantha says. "You're looking handsome as always."

"Seriously," Michael mutters. "I'm  _right here_."

"Good afternoon, Samantha," Harold replies. "Hello… _Derek_?"

"Daryl," Daryl grunts.

"I guess you and Cary got a verdict of probationary admission?"

"Nah. Got release. Leavin' in a few days."

"Well, I'm happy for you. That's what you wanted. But it would be nice to see Cary's smile around here for longer than that." Harold taps the tip of his camo hat and walks on.

Daryl grunts and slides his knife roughly from the tail to the head of the fish, and the scales flip off. Underneath his breath, to Harold Harrison's retreating back, Daryl mutters, "Her name's  _Carol_."

[*]

Shannon has to go to work in the gardens, and Carol feels awkward being left alone in the cabin with Shannon's mother and son. She ends up sitting on the couch and helping Gary to put together a wood puzzle under Grandma Bonnie's suspicious watch. The puzzle sports big pictures of farm animals.

"A cow goes moo," Carol says, and Gary says, "ooooo!"

Eventually, the grandmother takes the boy back to their shared bedroom for his nap, and, to Carol's relief, she must take a nap too, because she doesn't re-emerge. Carol explores the living room and notes the presence of the firearms above the mantle. She scans the spines of the books, which are sometimes stacked vertically to cram more onto the bookcase.

The top two shelves she's pretty sure are Garland's: a series of  _Gun Digests_ , missing every other year or so, a bunch of detective novels,  _Public Speaking for Dummies_ , a biography of Wyatt Earp and one of Teddy Roosevelt, several Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy novels, and a book containing the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. It's also clear enough that the bottom two shelves are meant to be Gary's books, littered as they are with Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl, Shel Silverstein, and toddler's board books.

It's the middle two shelves that puzzle her: Plato's  _Republic_  next to three Harlequin romance novels;  _Gone with the Wind_  wedged between Aristotle's  _Nicomachean Ethics_  and Kierkegaard's  _Either/Or;_ Immanuel Kant's  _Critique of Pure Reason_  beside two erotica novels; the  _Tropic of Cancer_  stacked in the middle of  _The Analects_  of Confucius andMachiavelli's  _The Prince_ ;  _Gardening for Dummies_  alongside  _A History of Western Philosophy_ ;  _How to Win Friends and Influence People_  on top of Descartes's  _Meditation on First Philosophy,_  which is on top of  _The Joy of Sex_. Are those all Shannon's books?

Carol shakes her head, grabs  _Gone with the Wind_ , and settles in the armchair to read. Grandma and Gary emerge an hour later, and the woman leaves to take the boy to play with a friend while Carol continues to read. During that time Dr. Ahmad pays a house call to check her vitals, peek at the stitches, and warn her not to exert herself.

"But I can sew, right?" she asks him.

" _Lightly_ ," he insists.

Carol reads a bit more. Grandma returns and, apparently having decided Carol is not a threat after all, asks her to watch Gary until Shannon gets home so she can go see a friend. Shannon comes in just twenty minutes later, and Garland and Daryl are not long after her.

After watching Garland kiss his wife hello, Daryl awkwardly kisses Carol hello. He smells faintly of fish and strongly of lavender soap. He doesn't kiss her for long, probably because they have an audience.

"Where's your mother?" Garland asks Shannon as he hangs his white Stetson on a hook on the back of the closed front door.

"Dinner with the manager again," she replies. "I think that's getting serious. Though Mamma feels like an adulteress, not knowing if Daddy is dead or alive."

"It's been over seven years."

"Well," Shannon replies, "would  _you_  date other women if  _I'd_  been missing and presumed dead for seven years?"

"Yes."

Carol catches Daryl eye, and they both resist the urge to laugh and end up smiling.

"Well that's not what I wanted to hear!" Shannon exclaims. "This is your problem, baby! You can't be politic."

Carol insists on helping Shannon to prepare dinner. While they cook, Carol tells her, "The doctor says I can do some light sewing. So if you have anything for me,  _please_. I want to  _do_  something useful tomorrow."

"Healing from your wound  _is_  useful," Shannon tells her. "But there's always plenty of sewing. I'll leave you some."

Little Gary is fed first, with small bites and a sippy cup of cow's milk, and then left to play with his matchbox cars on the deer skin rug. It's a tight fit around the square, wooden table, an intimate and cozy meal of fried catfish, fresh salad with spinach, scallions, and radish, and the ever-present Jamestown cornbread. Garland eyes Daryl as he eats half the meal with his hands, but he doesn't say anything. Eventually, Carol leans over and whispers, "Fork," and Daryl picks it up.

There's strawberry pie for dessert and Carol asks how Shannon makes it.

"I don't. My mamma does, in a dutch oven. She won't give me the recipe, says I'm not  _ready_  for it. I keep telling her she better, because she could keel over and die any day now."

"How  _politic_  of you, my dear," says Garland, and Daryl chuckles, low, in that rumbling, almost closed-mouth way that Carol loves.

Carol helps with dishes by doing the drying, and then they all move to the living room afterward, where Shannon gives them hot tea. Daryl ends up in the armchair, Carol in the rocking chair, and Garland and Shannon on the couch, while Gary lies face down on the rug, half asleep, slowly rolling a car back and forth.

"How was your day, baby?" Shannon asks.

"Not bad," Garland answers. "I drew up the patrol and watch schedules for the next several days. Found a missing kid. He'd skipped school and gone swimming. And there was a domestic."

"Bob and Mary?"

"She smacked him with a frying pan when she found him coming out of the whorehut," Garland replies. "Cast iron."

" _Ouch_ ," Shannon says.

"How was your day?" Garland returns.

"Same old same old. Gardening. The scallions were ready to harvest."

Daryl must be observing all this because when the room falls silent he looks across the way at Carol and asks, "'S yer day?" It makes her smile, this effort at social nicety, which he makes almost like a kid mimicking his parents as they go through the liturgy in church.

"I played with Gary, which was fun," Carol answers. "And I read half of  _Gone with the Wind_. How was your day?"

"Stank," Daryl answers. "Cleaned fish."

"It was difficult work?" Shannon asks.

"Nah. Easy. Just  _stank_."

"Do you like philosophy, Shannon?" Carol asks, still puzzling over the books.

"Oh, yeah, I got my bachelor's in philosophy. With a minor in political science."

Carol blinks. She looks across the rug at Daryl expecting him to share in her surprise, but he seems unaffected. "Did you know Shannon had a bachelor's in philosophy?"

"Yeah," Daryl says. "Paid for it workin' at a titty bar."

Garland rubs his eyes.

"See,  _Daryl_  doesn't judge," Shannon tells her husband.

"I've never  _judged_ ," Garland insists. "I just think scholarships would have been preferable."

"Well they don't give scholarships to C students, baby. And don't tell me you've never been to a strip club."

"Only for work."

Gary says, "Vwooom…..vwooom….vw…" and the car he's pushing slows to a stop on the rug as he passes out.

Garland sets his tea cup down on the end table and scoops up the sleeping toddler.

Carol glances at Daryl, and the light, hopeful smile on his face tells her he’s anxious to get to bed too.


	22. Wedding Plans

Dressed in only a pair of sweatpants, Daryl crawls into their borrowed bed with Carol, who, he's happy to find, is wearing only a tank top and panties. She rolls to him, and slow kisses follow. Daryl slips a hand under her shirt and traces her stitches gently with his fingertip. They're thicker than he expected, stronger. She was badly cut. He's not sure how far they can go in her condition. "Ain't sposed to do nothin' vigorous yet, huh?"

"No, but as soon as these stitches come out, and we're on the road…that first night? Sunday night? I want us to have sex."

"Yeah?" he asks, his gruff voice deepening a note.

"I just want it to be special. The first time. Just us. Alone."

"What, no threesomes?"

She smacks his shoulder lightly. "You know what I mean. No one else in the place. And I want to find someplace nice…like the ski lodge was. Or that winery in the mountains. Or…I don't know, a fancy hotel. I've never stayed in a fancy hotel. Maybe a bed and breakfast. We're taking the shorter route back, so I don't know what we'll come across, but just…someplace special."

"A'ight. Find ya someplace special." Five nights from now, Daryl thinks, he's going to be having sex with Carol. He's going to be  _inside_  her. The idea has given him a full-on hard on, and when she shifts, her leg brushes it. "Sorry," he mutters.

"Nothing to be sorry for." Carol kisses him and shifts so that his hand lands on her breast. He fondles it gently while she slips her hand into his sweatpants. In that expert way of hers, she quickly relieves his distress.

Daryl pants against the crook of her neck after he cums. Carol makes a soft sound as if she's in pain, and he shifts his weight away. "Ya a'ight?"

"I'm fine. Just a little ache."

"Sorry. Shouldn't of – "

"I'm fine. I guess I jerked too hard." She laughs.

"Ya take them pain pills the doc gave you?"

"I don't want to  _rely_  on those. We don't have those in the Kingdom. I don't want to get  _soft_."

Daryl sighs.

"We should wash up."

"Ya don't want nothin'?" he asks. "Want me to touch ya?"

"I think I probably shouldn't be swiveling my hips right now. I just want to cuddle, if that's okay."

"Mhmhm." He feels a little guilty that she took care of him and is getting nothing in return, but not so guilty that he isn't  _glad_  she took care of him.

They clean up with the washcloths left by the washbasin and crawl back into bed. Daryl rolls onto his back, and she snuggles in, lying on her non-stitched side. Her hand rests on his shoulder, and he can see the shadowed reflection of the cameo on the celling. "Umm…we engaged?" he asks.

Carol raises her head to look at him. "That  _was_  a marriage proposal, wasn't it? This morning?"

"Yeah."

"And I did take the ring, didn't I?"

"Yeah."

"So I think that means we're engaged," she says.

"Good."

"I thought maybe we'd have the wedding during the fair at the Kingdom," Carol says as she settles her head back down on his bare shoulder. "A lot of our mutual friends from Alexandria and Hilltop will already be there. Judith would make a cute flower girl, wouldn't she?"

"Weddin'?"

"That's usually what happens when people get married." She peers up at him. "You  _did_  want to get married, right?"

"Wanna  _be_  married. Don't wanna  _get_  married."

"It doesn't have to be big and fancy. And I don't want any other ring than this one. But I'd like some kind of ceremony. Just to mark the start of it, you know? Would that be okay with you?"

Girls like weddings, Daryl supposes. He'd be an ass to deny her one. "Ain't wearin' no monkey suit though."

"Maybe a nice button-down dress shirt?"

"Could do that." He wears button-down shirts all the time anyway. Sturdy work shirts, usually. And sometimes with the sleeves torn off. But a dress shirt can't be too different.

"And maybe a pair of khakis or something?"

Pants are pants. He can wear pants. "Guess that'd be a'ight."

She looks up at him again, with a twinkle in her pretty blue eyes. "And a blazer?"

"Don't push it."

Carol laughs. Daryl reaches over and turns off the oil lamp. Then he toys with the hair at the back of her neck for a while before he asks a question that's been on his mind. "Where we gonna live?"

"Well, I assumed we'd live in the Kingdom. You said you don't hate it. And I  _am_  the queen."

"Mhm. Yeah."

"You don't want to live there?"

"'S fine."

She pulls slightly away. "Daryl? It doesn't  _sound_  fine."

"Just…don't want live in that damn school. In a marble royal chamber."

"The classroom isn't made of marble."

"Don't like it. Wanna have a cabin or somethin'."

"The Kingdom doesn't have any cabins."

"Yeah," he mutters. "Never mind."

"No. Not never mind. What are you thinking here?"

"Could build one," he suggests. "In the Kingdom. Maybe. Wouldn't be good enough for ya, though, when ya can have lights and water 'n electric heat in the school."

"Daryl, I've lived in a lot of camps. You know I don't have any problem living anywhere."

"Yeah, but why do that when ya ain't got to?"

"Because it's clearly important to you, that's why."

"Just want our own place. Place 's just ours. Wanna…wanna build somethin'. For us."

"Then build something," she says. "For us. We'll find a bit of land somewhere within the gates."

Daryl wraps both arms around her. "A'ight."

"Will you miss the Hilltop too much?"

Daryl travels a lot, but the Hilltop has been his home base for almost three years now. "Make me one of yer trade reps." Ezekiel started the annual trade fair, but after he died, Carol found it insufficient to supply the Kingdom's needs. So she appointed a trade team that travels to Alexandria and then on to the Hilltop and back to the Kingdom on a regular trade schedule to exchange goods. Oceanside was too far away to be put in the loop, though they do come to the annual fair. If Daryl joins the trade team, he'll be able to see Hershel at the Hilltop and Judith in Alexandria on those trips.

"You'd be gone for five full days every four weeks, March through December." They avoid travel in January and February, due to the threat of snowstorms.

"So?"

Carol shrugs. "I'd miss you is all. But I know you'll feel pent-up in the Kingdom if you're there all the time. It's a good compromise. And I know I can rely on you to keep the trade team safe."

"So 'm hired?"

Carol's laugh leaves a cloud of warm breath on his bare shoulder. "Yeah. You're hired."

Daryl closes his eyes, and for the first time in nights, he sleeps soundly.

[*]

On Wednesday, Daryl helps two of the hunters – Barry and Steve - pluck and clean ducks on the butcher's table in the settlement and listens to their banter. They talk about hunting, about their weekend plans, and about Barry's teenage daughter's boyfriend. "I always make sure I'm cleaning my guns when he comes to pick her up for their dates," Barry says.

Daryl smirks to himself and thinks that's what he'd do, if he had a teenage daughter.

"Where does he take her?" Steve asks.

"Picnics," Barry says. "Rowing on the river. The movies."

"Movies?" Daryl grunts.

"They show them in the theater," Steve answers. "You have to sign up ahead of time if you want to go. Limited seating. A ticket costs a fourth an ounce of tobacco, a half ounce of moonshine, or a can of soup. What are they showing this weekend?"

" _The Little Mermaid_  in the morning and  _Ghost_  in the evening," Barry answers.

"Seriously?" Steve asks. "Just a kids' movie and a chick flick? Nothing for the men?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that. Pretty sure my wife's going to be horny after seeing Patrick Swayze shirtless in that pottery scene."

Hank, from the sheriff's posse, the one who signaled with the flag, walks by the table where they're plucking. A rifle dangles from his shoulder. "Good job, boys!" he says.

"You going to that party in the Indian Village Friday night?" Steve asks him.

"No can do," Hank replies. "I volunteered for night patrol by the docks."

"Now  _why_  would you volunteer for  _night patrol_  on  _party night_?" Steve asks him.

"Because there's gonna be an officers' poker game onboard the  _Godspeed_. Which means they're gonna have a couple topless ladies up there on deck serving drinks. Well within my  _purview_."

"That's not how you use that word," Barry says, and Steve chuckles.

Hank walks on. Daryl's on his last duck when Garland comes to get him, saying, "I need your help with something."

They end up fixing a few broken slats in the settlement fence together. With a nail dangling from his mouth, Daryl asks, "How'd the sheriff get stuck doin' this?"

"I'm working for my orphan's rations. Next we shovel shit."

"Hope that's a metaphor," Daryl replies after he pounds in another nail.

It's not.

When they're mucking out the stables together, Garland asks, "What did you do? In the old world?"

It doesn't bother Daryl anymore, that question. It doesn't make him feel ashamed. He knows status is determined differently now, that the question is an idle one, and the answer will have no effect whatsoever on his ranking in this world. "Same sort of shit 'm doin' here. Odd jobs. Just gettin' by."

"Before I was a cop, and then a homicide detective, I used to do roofing. In the summer. In Virginia. In the afternoon."

Daryl chuffs. "That must of sucked worse than shovelin' shit."

"What's the worse job you ever had?"

"Once, m'brother, Merle, got us this two-day job, cleanin' out some hoarder's house." Daryl dumps a shovel of horseshit in the fertilizer pile and then follows Garland back into the stable for more. "I thought  _we_  grew up in a trash pile, but  _this_ place… _damn_. Floor-to-ceiling newspapers and magazines, wall-to-wall soda cans and bottles, an entire clothes closet where this old lady'd been storing her Depends for months."

"The adults diapers?" Garland asks.

"Yeah. Her  _used_  Depends."

"Jesus. Did you wear hazmat suits?"

"Should of. Just wore gloves 'n paper masks. We found three dead kittens, too."

"Afternoon, sheriff," says a curly haired woman who strolls inside holding a brown leather doctor's bag and wearing knee-high boots.

"Afternoon, Carolyn. Carolyn, this is Daryl. Daryl, this is our veterinarian."

Daryl nods a greeting.

"Dead kittens?" she asks. "In one of the barns?"

"Ah, nah. 'S long time ago. Just tellin' a story."

"Oh, good," she sighs. "I was afraid Sphinix's new litter had gotten sick. Are you the one the convict stabbed?"

"Nah," Daryl replies. "He stabbed m'…m' fiancé." Because that's what Carol is. His fiancé. She's going to be his  _wife_. He's going to be a married man. The idea still stuns him a little every time he's reminded of it.

"Ah. Details often get lost in the grapevine." Carolyn sets her bag down and pulls out a stethoscope.

They finish shoveling the shit and then go to split wood. "Were you married in the old world?" Garland asks as they work.

Daryl's surprised by the question. Does he seem like the marrying kind? Of course, Garland knows he  _is_  getting married. So maybe he does. "Nah. 'S just me 'n my brother."

"I had a little sister. I got her out of Richmond when it was overrun by cannibals. We settled for a few months in a camp with about twenty other people. A buddy and I went out scavenging one day, came back three days later, and found the whole place transformed. No idea what happened. I had to put my own sister down." Wood cracks beneath Garland's axe.

"Had to put m'brother down, too," Daryl tells him, and brings the axe down hard on the wood. It splinters in two. He hasn't mentioned that in years. It's a strange relief, to be able to just  _say_  it right out like that.

"I suppose we should talk of more cheerful things. When's the wedding?"

"Few weeks after we get back." He's going to be a husband, Daryl realizes once again.

Daryl Dixon. A  _married man_.

Merle would laugh his ass off.

[*]

In the evening, after Grandma and Gary have gone to bed, Daryl sits in the arm chair listening to Carol and Shannon and Garland talk and sometimes making a gruff comment or two himself. He's grown to like Garland and thinks he might actually miss having the man around when they're gone.

That night, Daryl makes out with Carol in bed, but it doesn't go very far. She's worn out from all the sewing she did for the orphans today, more than she should have, no doubt, and so she's taken that pain pill she swore she wouldn't, and she fades to sleep mid-kiss.

Daryl sighs, kisses her forehead, and turns off the oil lamp. "Settle down," he orders his hard-on, and, eventually, it does.

[*]

On Thursday, Carol volunteers to help Shannon in the gardens. "Oh, no, not with those stitches still in," Shannon tells her. "Weeding and digging and planting…it's  _exhausting_. Not to mention all the movement."

"I'm bored. Can't I at least water with a watering can or something?"

"Well, I  _could_  work in the greenhouse today. You could sprinkle a little fertilizer. I'll get you some garden gloves."

Shannon leads her to a part of the settlement she hasn't seen, beyond the triangular fence. "Hello, Rodrigo!" Shannon calls and waves to a man with salt-and-pepper hair who is standing by the pig pen and taking notes on a clipboard while talking to another man who is throwing slop.

He turns around and Carol sees by the crow's feet around his eyes that he's probably close to seventy. "Morning, Shannon," he replies and goes back to his notes.

"That's the manager," Shannon whispers. "My mama's new beau."

Once in the greenhouse, they chat while they work. Shannon asks, "So when's the wedding?"

"In May. During our spring fair."

"So I take it you two have sealed the deal?"

"Yes, we're officially engaged," Carol answers as she pushes the fertilizer into the soil.

"No, I mean… I presume you've started doing a bit of the crumpet."

Carol laughs. "A bit of the  _what_?"

"A bit of  _How's Your Father_? Boppin' squiddles. Dancing in the sheets." Carol forgot she told Shannon they hadn't had sex yet, but she laughs more with each euphemism. "A little churning butter. A little bedroom rodeo. Dipping the wick. Dancing the  _forbidden polka_."

Carol puts a hand on her side.

"Oh, sorry!" Shannon apologizes. "I forgot laughing hard can cause an ache."

Carol regains control of herself. "It's okay. I have to be able to  _laugh_."

"So?"

"Not yet," Carol says, sprinkling a little fertilizer in another pot. "Not while we're guests."

"Oh, honey, what do you think I made sure you had a bedroom for?"

"I just want it to happen on the road. The two of us, solo travelers. All the time in the world. And I want the stitches out so we can…you know… _really_  knock those boots clean."

Shannon laughs.

[*]

Daryl looks physically exhausted when he comes in the cabin that evening, and his hair is wet. When he leans in to kiss Carol, he smells of baby shampoo.

"Did you take a shower?" Carol asks.

"Yeah. Dug irrigation all damn day in what must've been the hottest damn spot in the camp. Garland said I could have one. Down at the museum." He nods to Shannon, who is busy in the kitchen. "Also said he ain't gonna be home for super. Got a business meeting with the manager."

"Well that explains why you're home, Mama," Shannon says. "Instead of  _agreeing on stuff_  with the manager."

Grandma Bonnie appears befuddled by the remark but Carol hides a snort behind her hand.

After dinner, when Grandma and Gary are in bed, and Daryl, Carol, and Shannon are enjoying tea in the living room, Daryl asks, "'S yer day?"

Carol smiles. Maybe by the time they leave Jamestown Garland will have trained him in all sort of little nuptial niceties. "Shannon and I did a little gardening. I nearly popped a stitch laughing."

Shannon says, "You look tired Daryl, sugar. You and Carol should go right to bed when you finish that tea." She gives Carol a little wink.

But when they do get to bed, and Carol slides up to him, lying on her uninjured side, and presses her lips tenderly to his forehead, Daryl's already half asleep. When she kisses his nose, he's three-quarters of the way there, and when she kisses his lips, he's all the way out.


	23. Mutiny

On Friday, Daryl helps prepare a hide for tanning and gets to know two more hunters. He delivers firewood to the Indian Village, and patches a hole in the roof of one of the huts.

In the evening, he's plopped in the arm chair, silently watching Carol as she sits in the rocking chair and hems a pair of pants for one of the orphans. He thinks she's beautiful when she's concentrating on her sewing. There's a calm look in her eyes, and sometimes she sticks her tongue out ever-so-slightly when she's trying to get the stitch just right. He wants to suck that tongue.

She looks up at him and smiles. "Penny for your thoughts?" she asks.

"Ain't got no thoughts."

Garland tucks in Gary while Shannon puts away the washed and dried dinner dishes in the hutch.

"I think I'm going to bed, too," Shannon's mother Bonnie says as she folds the drying towel and sets it on the counter. "It's been a long day."

"What, no hot date tonight with the manager tonight, Mama?" Shannon asks.

"He has that poker game." She disappears into the room she shares with the little boy. Garland comes out and shuts the door behind him.

"Mama just reminded me, Garland," Shannon says, "you've got that poker game tonight."

"I don't want to go to that damn game," he mutters.

"All the movers and shakers will be there, baby. You really need to put in an appearance. Pretend to relate to the hoi poi. I told you what Harold said."

Garland sighs. "Those games are so  _vulgar_."

"Well, sometimes you have to be a politician, Garland, whether you want to be or not." She draws out a bottle of wine and puts in on the table in the kitchen nook.

"Why are you taking out the wine?"

"Because if you get to go to a poker game and look at half naked women, then I get to split this bottle of wine and play cards with Daryl and Carol."

Carol looks up from her sewing and catches Daryl's eye. "Half naked women?" she asks. Daryl looks down at the dirt beneath his fingernails.

"A couple of the prostitutes are going to be serving drinks topless," Shannon explains. "No touching allowed though. At least not for Garland. But if  _he_  gets to see them,  _I_  get wine."

" _Gets_  to see them?" Garland exclaims. " _You're_  the one who's making me go! And that wine was supposed to be for a special occasion."

"Having guests  _is_  a special occasion. And if you recall, it's actually  _their_  wine. " She sashays up to him, kisses his frowning lips, and says, "Have fun, baby."

Garland sighs loudly, plucks his white Stetson from the hook on the door, and sets it on his head. "You're to blame if I come home horny."

"Just bring it home to me, baby. Always to me."

"Only you," he agrees and kisses her cheek before heading out the door.

"Poker or rummy, kids?" Shannon asks as she pops the cork from the wine bottle.

"I ain't playin'," Daryl mutters. "Got a knife needs sharpenin'." Really, he just doesn't want to have to socialize, and Shannon asks a lot of questions.

"Spoil sport," Carol tells him, and puts down her sewing to walk over to the kitchen nook. She pauses to kiss Daryl on the top of his head. "I'm game for anything," she tells Shannon as she sits down at the table. " _Especially_  the wine. Deal me in."

[*]

While Carol and Shannon drink and laugh and play cards, Daryl sits in the armchair running a sharpening stone back and forth over the edge of his knife. Daryl's never heard Carol  _laugh_  like that with another woman in the Kingdom. He's seen her smile at something Nabila said once or twice, or talk seriously with Dianne about Kingdom business, but Daryl wonders suddenly if she has a single  _real_  female friend in the Kingdom. He wonders if, as their ruler, she can ever let herself get close to them.

"Rummy!" Carol shouts and slaps a card on the table with a loud -  _whap_.

"Well you don't have to smack it like you do Daryl's ass in bed," Shannon tells her.

Carol splutter-laughs. She turns and glances at Daryl, who lowers his head and concentrates fiercely on his blade.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I make your beau blush?" Shannon asks.

"It doesn't take much to make him blush," Carol replies and plucks up her wine glass.

The door to Gary's bedroom creeks open and Bonnie comes out holding her grandson on her hip. "Shannon, Gary's got another one of those monster headaches. Do you have any more of the doctors' special remedy?"

"Oh, damnit, I'm clean out. I'm going to have to go all the way down to the infirmary in the museum and get some. Unless," she tells Carol, "your beau would be a doll and go get it for me."

Carol cocks her head and bats her eyelashes in Daryl's direction. "Would my beau be a doll?" She laughs at Daryl's pained expression. "Please, Pookie?"

Daryl flushes at her use of that nickname she's never said in front of  _anyone_  before, stands, and sheathes his knife. "Yeah. Go get it."

"Oh, good," Bonnie says. "What a gentleman." After lowering Gary for Shannon to kiss his little forehead, Bonnie returns to the bedroom with the boy.

"Is the infirmary gonna be open?" Daryl asks as he shrugs into his leather vest.

"There's always  _someone_  on duty," Shannon tells him. "Just tell them I need a refill on Gary's headache medicine. They'll know."

"Gotta pay for it or somethin'?"

"They'll mark it down and we'll sort it out."

When Daryl opens the front door, Carol says, "No looking at the half-naked women on your way past the docks."

"Pffft." He shuts the door behind himself, but he can still hear the women laughing inside.

As he walks through the settlement, Daryl waves to Earl, who is patrolling the inside of the fence. The old fort is largely deserted tonight, because of some loud party going on in the Indian Village on the other side of it. There's live music – guitar, fiddle, mouth harp, and washboard, and lots of people – of all ages, it seems - laughing.

For all its strange customs, and its crass captain, Jamestown isn't a bad place, Daryl thinks. The Hilltop is known for its farming, Oceanside for its fishing, the Kingdom for its music and movies and gardens, Alexandria for its extra-fortified fences – but Jamestown has it  _all_. The people are a mixed bag, like people anywhere. He likes Garland and Shannon, though. He likes Earl the baliff-patrolman, Dr. Ahmad, and that veterinarian, Carolyn. He likes the hunters and the irrigation diggers he's met. He likes the manager, Rodrigo, who brought him water while he was working on Thursday. He doesn't know if he likes Grandma Bonnie yet, but he sure does like her strawberry pie.

The music fades into the distance as Daryl walks in the dark, relying on starlight and moonlight, out of the settlement, past the empty farm fields, until he finally reaches the wooden planks of the docks. Beyond the  _Discovery_  and the  _Susan Constant_ , he can hear the game going on aboard the  _Godspeed._ There's laughter and the occasional bark of manly shouting and women laughing.

As he gets closer, by the lights of all the lanterns on the deck of the ship, he can see a bare-breasted woman walking about pouring beer from the Jamestown brewery. A second topless whore sits on the captain's lap. Daryl can only make out the sheriff by his white Stetson. Garland's pulled it down over his eyes and is concentrating on his cards.

Carol's high school sweetheart, Commander Harold Harrison, appears to be watching rather than playing the game. He stands looking over the manager's shoulder at his cards. The lieutenant commander also stands watching, while three more naval officers sit around the table playing.

Four sailors, clearly not invited to the festivities reserved only for the officers and high-ranking government officials, linger on the dock, stealing glances up at the women, and not observing Daryl's presence. The night patrolman for this section of Jamestown – Hank - is walking down the dock straight in Daryl's direction, but doesn't seem to see him either, masked as Daryl is in the dark shadow of the  _Susan Constant_. Hank stops, turns, and looks up at the serving woman who has now leaned over the deck to shake her tits at him.

Daryl's wondering why she's giving Hank a free show when the sailors suddenly surround the patrolman. Two pin his arms, one covers his mouth, and the fourth slits his throat with a knife. It all happens so fast that Daryl can't shout a warning to the sheriff.

While the sailors are murdering Hank, the whore sitting on the captain's lap drives a knife up and into his throat, and the commander –  _Harold_   _Harrison_  himself - slits the throat of the manager. The lieutenant commander is coming in to slit Garland's throat when the stabbed captain rears up with the knife still lodged in his neck and topples both the whore and the poker table. Two officers jump the captain at once, but he throws them off like rag dolls.

In the commotion, the sheriff evades the lieutenant commander's blade and yanks free his revolver, but then has it knocked from his hand by the lieutenant, who lunges for it when it falls to the deck. While the lieutenant scrambles to pick it up, the sheriff leaps overboard, vanishing with a splash into the depths of the water.

Before he can be noticed, Daryl buries himself stomach down in the tall grass alongside the dock and unsheaths his knife. He army crawls toward the  _Godspeed_  and then all the way up to the edge of the grass to peer through the blades. The moonlight illuminates the sheriff's white Stetson, which floats on the black, rippling surface of the river.

A coup is unraveling right before his eyes, and there are nine armed men – five on the ship, four on the docks – and perhaps as many as two armed women, if both of those whores have weapons. The men are probably avoiding gunshots, though, so as not to alert Earl, who is patrolling the settlement, or the guards who stand by the iron gate outside the museum.

The officers, as a group, have finally managed to bring the captain down. Just to make sure he's good and dead, Daryl supposes, all five of them, together, heave his mighty, bleeding body into the river where it sends up a waterfall of splashing water.

That means the sheriff is the only man left alive in the line of secession standing between Harold Harrison and the leadership of Jamestown.

Daryl, knife in hand, stomach down, slithers further to the left to get a better look and to await his moment. He figures out where the sheriff has gone, even if the navy men haven't, because he sees him surface just a moment for a breath of air before diving down again in the direction of the wooden docks. Daryl assumes Garland will swim there, surface beneath the wood, hidden by the planks, and tilt his head back, nose just above the water, to breathe the six inches of air between the river and the dock.

"Where the hell did Garland go?" Harold yells at the lieutenant commander. "How could you lose him!"

"How could you trust a whore to be able to kill the captain!" the lieutenant commander shouts back.

Harold leans over the deck of the boat and calls down to the sailors below. "Find him!"

They scurry along the docks, searching the water, as the officers disembark from the ship. They all have guns on their hips, but Daryl's still pretty sure they don't want to use them, not when it could bring men loyal to the sheriff running. Their voices won't travel all the way to the museum or the settlement, but a gunshot surely will.

The two whores on the ship have pulled on their shirts and are throwing back moonshine from mason jars – whichever ones didn't break in the tumult.

"Garland!" Harold calls as he paces along the dock. "If you don't come out here  _right now_ , I'm going back to your cabin, and I'm going to fuck that full-time whore you call your wife!"

Harold waits silently, but the sheriff does not emerge. Of course he doesn't. He damn well knows he'll be murdered the second he does, and he'll certainly have no chance of protecting his wife then. Daryl would await his moment too. He  _is_  awaiting his moment.

"Don't believe me?" Harold yells. "Fine. I'll go get Shannon now." Harold begins strutting toward the field and stops right in front of where Daryl is hiding. Daryl wills every muscle in his body to still. He almost stops breathing. "I'll drag her back here," Harold calls, "and you can listen to her satisfied screams."

"You're doing what?" the lieutenant commander asks nervously as he stops searching the water and strides over to Harold. "Are you insane? That will draw attention!"

Harold lowers his voice to a near whisper, and Daryl can just barely make out his words. "By now the kid and the mother-in-law will both be asleep. No one will ever know I was there. Almost everyone is at the party in the Indian Village. I'll wait until Earl's patrolling the far side of the settlement, and then I'll bring Shannon here on some trumped-up excuse. I'll make sure no one sees me." Harold has completely forgotten, or perhaps was never told, that Daryl and Carol are staying in that cabin, too.

Daryl seriously considers jumping Harold right here and now, but he knows Carol will handle the bastard if he tries to hurt her or Shannon. She  _does_  have a knife now, after all, and he doesn't want to give away his position, not yet, not when it's nine against one. They'll just kill him.

"Once we have her down here," Harold tells the lieutenant-commander, "we scare her good. When Garland hears her crying, I guarantee you he'll come out. Then we kill him, kill her. We blame the mutiny on Garland, Shannon, and Hank. We tell the people they plotted it all so Garland could rise to the top.  _They_  killed the manager. Stabbed the captain. In the fight to protect the captain, we killed them all. But unfortunately, the captain fell overboard in the tumult, and he was stabbed so badly…he drowned."

"That's good thinking," the lieutenant commander replies. "This is why  _you_  should have  _always_  been captain."

"Keep looking for Garland while I'm gone. Break up. Scour the docks. Search the other ships, in case he managed to climb up in one of those. Take a rowboat out on the river. See if you can find out where he swam to."

Harold's footsteps clatter across the wooden dock and disappear on the dirt path beside the fields.


	24. A Kindness Is Never Wasted

When Harold's gone, it's eight against one, but Daryl still waits.

When the lieutenant commander and the lieutenant set out on the river in a rowboat with a glowing lantern on the bow to search the water for Garland, it's six against one, but Daryl still waits.

When two more men disappear onto the  _Susan Constant_  to search the ship, it's four against one, but Daryl still waits.

When another two men board the  _Discovery_ , it's two against one, but Daryl still waits.

But when the slain Hank reanimates, because they slit his throat instead of stabbing him in the head, and the walker begins lurching its way toward the two searchers on the dock, and the men turn and walk with knives drawn toward the growling creature –  _then_  Daryl makes his move.

[*]

Shannon shuts the door to her mother and Gary's bedroom and rejoins Carol at the table. "Poor little guy," she says. "He cried himself to sleep. Mama's asleep too."

"He's a cute little one," Carol says as she deals another hand.

Shannon refills their empty wine glasses. "He's going to ask one day why he's a different color than both of us. I haven't decided what to tell him yet."

"Just tell him the truth," Carol says.

"That his biological father was killed trying to invade what he thinks of as his  _home town_?"

"Well, maybe a selected  _version_  of the truth."

There's a knock at the door. Shannon lays her hand of cards facedown on the table. "Daryl should know he doesn't have to  _knock_." She stands up and walks to the door.

Carol arranges her hand by suit and number.

"Harold!" Shannon says in surprise. "Why aren't you at the poker game with Garland?"

**[*]**

Daryl charges down the dock as the two men draw their knives on the walker. They both turn at Daryl’s footsteps, which gives the walker a chance to sink its teeth into the neck of one of them. The bitten man drops his knife to the dock and screams, and so the other man whirls around and raises his knife to drive it into the walker's head, but before he can, Daryl quickly slits his throat, scoops up the first man's fallen knife, and then promptly buries himself in the grass again.

He lies there, a knife in  _each_  hand now, as the walker begins to feast.

The four men who boarded the two ships come clamoring out and jump onto the docks at the sound of the screaming. Daryl lays low as the navy men's boots pound down the dock toward the scene. One of them kills the feasting walker. A second kills the bitten man, murmuring, "Jesus Christ." A third says, "Why did you leave him to change!"

"We got distracted by the sheriff jumping!" replies the fourth.

One of them crouches down to look at the other fallen sailor. "He wasn't bit! His  _neck's_  been  _slit_!" He stands and turns in a circle. "And where's his knife?"

[*]

"Can I come in for a minute?" Harold asks.

Shannon steps back to let him in, saying, "Oh no! Did something happen to Garland?"

"Hey, Cary," Harold says, sounding surprised and…more than surprised. Thrown off? There's something in his voice Carol doesn't like, something that sets every hair on the back of her neck on edge. "I didn't realize you were staying here." Harold shuts the door behind himself.

Carol has her back to the door, but she can hear the  _click_  of the lock. Why would he  _lock_  it? She slowly lowers her cards to the table. Smiling, Carol turns in her chair in such a way that he can't easily see when she lets her hand fall to the hilt of her knife. "Garland and Shannon have so kindly put us up until our release."

Harold glances at both the bedroom doors. "Is your boyfriend here?"

"He's just – " Carol's about to lie and say he's just in one of the bedrooms, but Shannon simultaneously says, "Daryl went to get Gary some medicine."

"So it's just you two then?" Harold asks. "And Gary's asleep? And your mother, too?"

From the changed look on her face, Shannon has also begun to suspect something is awry. In fact, it seems like a lot of puzzle pieces are clicking together in her mind all at once. "Good Lord, Harold," Shannon says coquettishly. "With a series of questions like that, I'd think you wanted to  _seduce_  us. Not that I'd mind." She laughs and starts walking away from him. "I'm just going to stoke the fire." Shannon walks over to the hearth, but she doesn't stoke the fire. Instead, she reaches for one of the rifles hung above the mantle.

Harold sees. He drops his hand to his knife, unsnaps the sheath, and follows. At the same time, Carol stands. Harold hears the sound of her knife rasping from its sheath, turns, and kicks Carol back. His booted heel hits her where her stab wound was and sends an agonizing pain up her side. Carol stumbles back against the table.

With no time to load the rifle she grabs, Shannon simply slams it across Harold's back as he comes in for Carol with his knife.

He cries out, whirls on Shannon, and rips the rifle from her hands, which is when Carol lunges forward and drives the tip of her knife into the back of his neck. That's as high as she can reach on his tall frame, and the most vulnerable spot she can find from behind.

Harold tears away before she can rip the knife back out. Blood seeps out from around the blade and dribbles down beneath his white shirt collar.

The bedroom door flies open, and Bonnie stands there in her flowing, ankle-length nightgown.

"Mama! Get back in the bedroom!" Shannon yells. "Lock the door!"

Bonnie obeys instantly, and the cabin frame rattles as she slams the door. They can hear furniture sliding across the floor and Gary crying.

Harold, with nothing left to lose at this point, tosses the unloaded rifle across the room, far away from Shannon, and lunges at Carol with his knife. She side steps him. "You bitch!" he yells. "You tease!"

Shannon strikes him again, this time with the unloaded shotgun she grabs from above the mantle, and when he turns on her, Carol yanks her knife out of the back of his neck. Blood splatters her hands and the cabin floor. Harold screams. Gripping the back of his neck, as if that could stop the bleeding, he whirls around, and Carol thrusts the knife straight into his gut, all the way to the hilt. She twists - left, right, left, right - so the gutting hooks can cause the most damage possible before ripping the knife across his stomach, wrenching it out, and stumbling back. Clutching at his cut-open stomach and gurgling on the blood that is now rising to his mouth, Harold tumbles to the ground.

The front door rattles in its frame. "Shannon?" comes Earl's voice through the door. "I heard screaming! What's going on? Open up!"

Shannon unlocks the door and Earl comes bursting in, rifle ready, and surveys the scene. He looks at the bloody knife in Carol's hands and at Harold bleeding on the floor. The bailiff-patrolman raises his rifle directly at Carol. "Drop it!"

[*]

While one navy man is still crouching, and the other three are looking around frantically for who slit the fallen man's throat, Daryl emerges from the grass, rushes forward, and thrusts his arms out wide to plunge a blade in two men's chests at once. He rips upward, and then tears the knives free. The bodies  _thud thud_  against the dock.

He kicks back the junior lieutenant, who's running right for him. The junior lieutenant stumbles back a few steps and steadies himself at the edge of the dock, without toppling off. The fourth man has by now stood from his crouching position over the dead body of his fallen peer. He lunges for Daryl, who blocks his blade with one of his own and then swings his other knife up to slit diagonally across the man's throat. When the sailor staggers, clutching his bleeding throat, to the ground, Daryl whirls back to face the junior lieutenant at the edge of the dock.

The junior lieutenant, desperate now only to live and no longer caring about drawing attention, has dropped his knife and drawn his handgun. The man's finger is already dropping toward the trigger.

[*]

Carol immediately opens her hand. The knife clatters to the floor.

"No!" Shannon yells, and pushes the barrel of Earl's rifle down. "Harold attacked  _us_!"

"But…why?" Earl says.

"The poker game!" Shannon exclaims. "Harold  _wanted_  Garland there. He  _told_  me to  _make_  him come.  _All_  of the government is there! It must be a coup gone bad. Why Harold was coming for  _me_ , I don't know. But it must be a coup gone bad."

"MUTINY!" Earl yells, running out the cabin door. "All deputies to the docks!"

[*]

Daryl's certain he's a dead man. All he has is a knife in each hand and a knife can't stop a bullet. But as the junior lieutenant fires, his arm jerks upward, and the shot misses its mark, flying over Daryl's left shoulder. It's a moment before Daryl realizes why. There's a hand on the junior lieutenant's ankle, yanking him.

The junior lieutenant pinwheels backward into the river, and the handgun falls with him.

The sheriff must have come out of hiding and seen what was happening. He swam up the river a ways while Daryl was fighting, and now he's pulled the junior lieutenant in.

They tussle in the water, fighting for the handgun and attempting to drown each other. Daryl scurries to the edge of the dock, sheathes one knife, and tries to get a handle on the scene, to judge when and how to help, but it's hard to make out anything on the black surface of the water. He can't even tell who's who at first.

There's a lot of gasping and sputtering for breath. The junior lieutenant gains hold of the handgun, but can't get it to fire wet, and Garland rips it from his hand and smacks him across the head with it, hard, first to the left, and then again to the right. As the lieutenant passes out and disappears below the water, Garland, unable to tread water exhausted and one handed, also sinks, but soon drops the gun and splutters to the surface.

Kneeling at the edge of the dock, Daryl reaches out for Garland, who seizes his hand. Daryl drags him up onto the dock. The sheriff rolls onto his back, gasping for breath.

By now, the junior lieutenant has resurfaced, bent and floating face down on the river. If he's not dead already, he soon will be.

In the distance, Daryl can make out the row boat rowing quickly toward them. They've been spotted, and the last two officers are coming for them, with guns on their hips, and Daryl has only knives.

But when armed deputies thunder on horseback past the farm fields and toward the ships, the rowers quickly reverse course and row away.

Five men, among them Earl, rear their horses to a stop and clamor, rifles drawn to the dock. Three of them train their rifles on Daryl.

"Not him!" Earl yells. "It was the navy men." They lower their guns.

"Carol?" Daryl asks at the same time Garland gasps, "Shannon?"

"They're both alive," Earl answers. "Harold's dead. Carol killed him. Bonnie's alive. Gary's alive." He takes an oil lamp from one of the other deputies and raises it to peer down the docks. "Wasn't Hank on patrol?"

"Hank's dead," Daryl says. "Sailors slit his throat."

Garland points weakly to the boat rowing away. "Arrest them," he chokes out between gulps for air. " _Alive_. And the two whores hiding on the  _Godspeed_."

Three of the sheriff's deputies get in a rowboat while Earl and a second deputy head toward the  _Godspeed._ As two of the deputies row toward the escaping officers, the third trains his rifle on them and orders them to drop their weapons and stop rowing.

Daryl sits down beside Garland, helps him into a sitting position, and lets him lean propped up against his shoulder while the man finishes catching his breath. "Thank you," Garland manages finally.

"Well," murmurs Daryl. "Someone once told me - a kindness ain't never wasted."

Garland laughs, coughs, and then says, "That was one hell of a net to chew through."

[*]

Daryl finishes telling Garland everything he saw, heard, and did. Garland, his breath now recovered, sits forward. "Do me one more favor will you?"

"'S that?"

"When you give your formal testimony, don't mention the part about Harold calling my wife my full-time whore. I don't think that detail will make a difference. And I don't want to upset Shannon."

"Mhm." Daryl doesn't think that detail would upset Shannon. Shannon would probably laugh that detail away. He thinks that detail upsets the sheriff. "Won't mention it."

Garland begins to struggle to his feet. Daryl stands and gives him a hand up. Just as the sheriff has gained his footing, a gunshot cracks through the air from the direction of the  _Godspeed_. Both men jump and reach for weapons – Garland for the revolver that's not in his holster, and Daryl for the crossbow that's not on his back.

"Earl?" Garland yells. "Andrew?"

"We're all right!" Earl shouts from off the ship.

Garland's shoulders relax and tighten again at the snap of a rifle. Daryl peers out in the darkness over the water. The lanterns on the rowboats illuminate the scene. One of the fleeing naval officers is now slumped over the side of the boat, half in, half out. A deputy stands, balancing himself in the center of the pursuing rowboat, with his rifle poised. The other two deputies have dropped their oars and lifted their rifles, too. The second fleeing naval officer drops his gun and raises his hands.

"Alive, Timmy!" Garland shouts.

The standing man takes one hand off his rifle and raises it up, as though to say –  _I'm trying, boss, I'm trying._

"Hell ya want that officer alive for?" Daryl asks. "'S obvious he done it. Could of just shot 'em from the docks."

"I want to know who else knew about it, if anyone," Garland explains. "And other than that traitor on that rowboat, I'm the last man in the entire government now. I want people to know I won't become a tyrant. That I'm a man of the law, and will  _always_  be a man of the law, no matter how much power I have. So he will be tried by a jury of his peers."

Earl and Andrew are off the  _Godspeed_  and back on the docks now. Andrew leads a handcuffed whore by the arm while Earl walks holding Garland's revolver pointed downward. "The other woman," Earl explains when he comes to a stop before the sheriff, "got ahold of your revolver somehow."

Garland takes the gun and slides it back into his holster. "It got knocked out of my hand when I tried to defend myself."

"Well, she pointed it at me," Earl says matter-of-factly, "so now she's dead."

When the other deputies arrive with the captured lieutenant, and force him onto the dock, Earl grabs hold of him.

"Sorry, boss," Timmy says, "but the other one's dead."

"Well good job getting this one, deputy." Garland turns to Earl and Andrew. "Lock those two in the cells. I'll be up to interview them later. Tell the undertaker there's work to do. Get Harold's body out of my cabin. Bring it down here. The rest of you - " He waves hand in a half circle around his deputies. "Help me gather all the bodies. The captain's body and the manager's and Hank's, the undertaker will prepare for a morning burial. The traitors, we'll pile on a raft, set them on fire, and send them down river. I don't want any drifters in here."

Daryl supposes that's what they call floaters.

"Yes, Sheriff," the deputies chorus. Earl mounts his horse with the captured lieutenant, and Andrew with the whore, and they thunder off. The other three deputies head toward the  _Godspeed_  to carry out the dead whore.

"Whatchya want me to do?" Daryl asks.

"Go check on your woman and my family. Tell Shannon I'll likely be working all night. And then get yourself some sleep. And if you need a drink first, I've got half a mason jar of moonshine in the bottom left cabinet of the hutch."


	25. Transition

When Daryl reaches the cabin, Earl and Andrew are carrying Harold's body out, Shannon is soothing her wailing son, Grandma is mopping up the blood from the floor, and Carol is checking her stitches. Two have popped out an unraveled. When she sees Daryl, she drops her shirt, runs to him, and throws her arms around his neck. He wraps his arms around her waist and kisses her gratefully.

Both go and clean the blood from their hands in a washing trough, by the light of an oil lamp, watching the clear water turn to a murky brown.

"I went an entire year without having to kill a man," Carol says as she washes. "And now I've killed two in the last nine days."

Daryl looks down at the rippling water as she scrubs. Her hands have come clean, but when she raises her ring finger, and turns it to catch the light of the oil lamp, he sees the Cherokee Rose has turned from white to pink. "The blood won't come all the way off," she says.

"Get ya another one. Whole damn box of 'em. Rings. Pick out whatever ya want."

"No. I don't want another one. I want this one." She runs a finger over the raised carving in the cameo. "It will remind me that there's beauty beneath the blood. That I have something  _worth_  protecting. A life worth living for. There's a purpose to what we do, Daryl," she says softly. "And I'm okay with that."

He leans over and kisses her gently.

When they get back to the cabin, The floor is largely clean, and the area rug from the bedroom now lies over the spot where the worst of the bloodstains must have been. Gary and Grandma are gone, and their bedroom door is shut.

"Sorry," Daryl tells Shannon. "Forgot to get that medicine."

Shannon laughs. She pulls Daryl in for a grateful hug and says, "Thank you. Thank you for saving my man." She steps back. "Little Gary's back asleep, medicine or no medicine, and my poor mama has  _cried_ herself to sleep over the manager." She shakes her head and slumps onto the couch in the living room. "I can't believe I  _made_  Garland go to that poker game!"

"Garland said to say he's working all night," Daryl tells her.

"Of course he is."

There's a knock on the door, and Shannon answers cautiously this time. It's Dr. Ahmad, come to check on Carol. He looks over her stitches and sighs. "Well, I guess it won't be much of a problem at this point. Except you might have a scar. I'll take the rest of them out tomorrow afternoon. But please rest tomorrow." He leaves her some pain medicine and also drops off Gary's medicine, telling Shannon he noticed she hadn't picked it up this week.

"Thank you, doctor," Shannon tells him as she walks him to the door. She shakes her head after she's shut it. "I really thought Harold was one of the halfway decent ones. But he would have killed us both if Daryl wasn't there to save Garland, and you, Carol, weren't here to save me."

"You helped save yourself," Carol reminds her. "I'd be dead if you hadn't hit Harold both those times." She holds out her hand to Daryl. "We better get some rest."

"Mhmhm." He takes her hand, and together they walk to the bedroom.

[*]

Daryl's sitting on the bed, stripping off his socks in the flickering glow of the nightstand oil lamp, when Carol says, "I don't want to wait until Sunday."

"What?"

"I don't want to wait. If I pop some more stitches, who cares? They're about to come out anyway."

He sits there, a sock dangling from one hand. "Ya mean…"

"I  _do_  mean."

"Thought ya wanted a fancy hotel. Ski lodge. Winery in the Blue Ridge mountains. Thought ya wanted somethin' special."

"This is something special," she says. "You're alive. I'm alive. We're alive together. And that's something special."

Daryl drops the sock. "A'ight." His stomach is doing all sorts of strange flips. Desire and excitement tumble over his fear of disappointing her.

"You should probably be gentle though," she says as she walks toward him.

"Side hurting?"

"Not really. I just want it to be gentle our first time."

He stands and puts a hand on her hip. "Think I can do that." He wants to do that. Tonight, that's exactly what he wants – to be gentle with her.  

He bends and kisses her. It's a long, soft, tentatively explorative kiss, and when she steps back, she asks, "Do you want to undress me?"

His fingers are trembling when he unbuttons her shirt. He's not sure why. They didn't tremble when they held the knives. He slips it from off her shoulders and it pools on the floor. Daryl slides her bra straps down her shoulders, one by one, admiring the blush of heat the act brings to her slender arms. The clasp is in the front, and he pops it free. He hums when her breasts spill out, and caresses them while she closes her eyes. He plays for a little while, trailing kisses down her cheek and to her lips while he circles her nipple lightly with a thumb. The kiss deepens, and he goes from circling to lightly pinching.

She's breathing hard when he tears his mouth away to concentrate on undoing her belt. Daryl fumbles with the button of her pants and there's a low rasp when he pulls the zipper down. He pushes her pants down, below her hips, and they slide naturally the rest of the way. She steps out of them, and he swallows.

Carol undoes the top button of his shirt and works her way down while he stands with a hand on each of her hips, admiring her. He has to help her wrench the shirt off when it sticks at the cuffs. When she starts undoing his belt, he thinks it's about the sexiest thing he's ever seen his life, this woman, his soon-to-be wife, in nothing but her panties, struggling with the silver prong of his buckle.

Frustrated, she pleads, "Help!" and he smiles and undoes the belt for her, then the top button, and finally the zipper before dropping his pants straight to the floor.

She must have forgotten he goes commando, because she gasps at the full erection that appears before her, and then she chuckles at her own gasp, which makes him chuckle too.

He nods at her panties. "Now you."

He likes the way her skin flushes pink in the light of the lamp as she slides them off. His eyes roam her naked form, hungry to take it all in, and her skin reddens. "Can we get under the covers now?" she asks.

He didn't anticipate this shyness, but he turns and yanks them down, waits for her to crawl under, crawls in with her, and then his mouth is on hers, and his hands are all over her, caressing every inch he can find, except for her wounded side. Her fingers explore him, too. She traces every sinew of his arms. There are sighs and gasps and little moans as they savor each other.

"Tell me how ya want it," Daryl murmurs in her ear.

"I want to be on top."

He rolls abruptly on his back, expects there to be some further kissing, caressing, some shy maneuvering on Carol's part, a gradual easing in to her. He doesn't expect her to straddle him immediately and impale herself on his erection, but that's exactly what she does, and she's as wet as he is hard and - "Oh sweet holy fuck!" he groans.

Carol gasps, reaches for balance, and he helps to hold her up as she begins to rock her hips. She whimpers and bites her lip as she starts slow, and then moans as she picks up pace. He tries to match her exactly, but he must thrust harder than he thinks, because it's, "Gentle please" and then "slower," but almost as soon, it's "harder!" "faster!"

He gives her what she wants, or at least he earnestly tries, turning his mind deliberately to mundane thoughts every time he thinks he won't make it a second longer. And his reward, eventually, is not a quiet pop and shudder, but a loud "Oh Daryl! Oh God!  _Oh my God_!" followed by a long slow moan and violent shudder. He thrusts up hard one last time and grunts as he explodes inside her.

Carol collapses against him in a full body tremble that just keeps going.

[*]

Carol thinks her body will never stop trembling, but it does, eventually, stilling beside Daryl's warm slick flesh. His arms are strong and comforting around her, and her breath has leveled to normal. So has his.

"'S good?" he asks.

"Yes. I didn't know it could be so good."

He trails his fingertip up her spine, and she shifts in his arms, kisses his bare shoulder, and raises her head to look at him in the waning light of the oil lamp. "Thank you," she says, "for being so patient."

"Whatdaya mean?"

"I made you wait a long time."

"Been 'bout two weeks since we first kissed."

She laughs. It has, hasn't it? But it doesn't feel like that. And it hasn't been about two weeks since he first loved her, not judging by what he said in that courtroom about not being able to stand seeing her with Ezekiel. And it hasn't been two weeks since she first loved him, either. "Sometimes, I think it's been about seven years." She settles her head on his shoulder.

"Mhmhm. Well, ya know that Bible story."

"What Bible story?" she asks.

"One 'bout Jacob and Rachel. Jacob worked seven years for 'er, 'n it was like a day, 'cause of the love he had for 'er."

Carol bites down on her bottom lip to keep the smile from turning into a happy cry. "I didn't know you were such a Bible reader."

"Ain't. Just grew up in Georgia. Gonna hear 'bout it." His finger inches up her spine, sending a warm shiver through her flesh. "Never made any damn sense to me, why a man would want a woman that bad. But I get it now." Daryl's still trailing his fingertip lazily over her back when he falls asleep.

[*]

The next morning, when they awake, Daryl and Carol kiss and caress lazily. "Gotta go to work," Daryl says. "Last day."

She smiles softly and outlines his earlobe with her fingertip. "Are you looking forward to our road trip home?"

"Lookin' forward to enjoyin' you on the way." He nips at her shoulder and she laughs. He rolls out of bed, still naked, and begins pulling on his clothes.

Carol watches him. "You have a nice ass, Mr. Dixon."

"Pffft." He yanks up his pants over it.

"I should slap it like I rummy those cards."

"Stahp." He jerks up his zipper and buckles his belt and then turns and bends down and kisses her. He lifts the blanket to peek at her naked body, and she yanks it from him and covers up.

"You'll just get worked up again," she scolds him.

"Go back to sleep," he insists. " _Rest_. Doctor's orders. Got a long trip ahead of us tomorrow."

[*]

When Daryl comes out, Gary is playing with his cars on the floor, and the kettle is whistling on the wood stove. "Did you sleep well last night, Daryl?" Shannon asks with a smile as she pulls down a tea cup.

He flushes when he realizes she must have heard them. "Mhmm. Real good."

"I bet you did. I suppose Carol is sleeping in?"

"Yeah. But'm ready for work."

"No work for you today, sugar. You're released of your last six hours of obligation. All work is grinding to a halt, except the bare minimum necessary. It'll be a day off for mourning for the captain and the manager and Hank. Want some black tea?"

"Yes'm."

Carol emerges from the bedroom, despite Daryl's order that she go back to sleep, and so Shannon pulls down another cup for her. Shannon's just finished pouring hot water over tea bags in three cups when Garland opens the front door, looking haggard. "Oh, baby, you need some sleep!" Shannon tells him.

"I can't. There's the funeral in an hour, and then I best hold a town meeting to squash all the rumors and explain where we go from here. At least I'll be too tired to be nervous about the public speaking bit."

"Then I better get you some tea, too." She draws down another cup. "What did you find out?"

Garland slumps into a wooden chair at the table in the kitchen nook. "The lieutenant we captured wasn't talking. But the whore sang like a canary once I promised her I'd take the death penalty off the table."

"Now why would you do that!" Shannon exclaims. "She killed the captain!"

"It was the dead one who killed the captain and tried to shoot Earl," Garland tells her.

"Well then she got Hank killed," Shannon insists.

"True," Garland agrees. "But I got a lot of information out of her. Let's just say Harold was a  _frequent_  client of hers, and I confirmed that with the madam's account books."

"They keep account books?" Carol asks skeptically as she takes her cup of tea from Shannon's hands.

"The madam does." Garland accepts the tea cup Shannon pushes over to him and dunks the bag up and down. "Down to the penny, believe it or not. Or should I say the ounce. And the lieutenant was a frequent visitor to the other conspirator."

"Harold told me he never visited the whores," says Shannon, holding out a cup of tea to Daryl.

Daryl takes the cup and blows across it. The steam rises and curls. "Harold told a lotta lies."

"I interviewed everyone down at the whorehut," Garland continues, "and I don't think any of the other women were in on it. We turned the officers' cabins on the ships upside down and inside out. Had to break into some locked chests, but we found written communications. They've been planning the mutiny for weeks. Between what the whore told me and what I found…I'm pretty sure none of the other sailors were in on it. Harold's plan was that he would become the head of Jamestown, of course, and then he'd appoint his lieutenant commander as sheriff and his lieutenant as manager."

"The lieutenant doesn't know jack shit about farm management!" Shannon exclaims. "He'd have run Jamestown into the ground!"

"Actually, as it turns out, he has a B.A. in agricultural management. He's wanted the manager's position ever since John was promoted to captain, but the captain passed him over for Rodrigo, who was a high school dropout, and that apparently embittered the lieutenant."

"Well Rodrigo did a damn good job," Shannon says.

"The captain did have an eye for talent," Garland agrees. "Just not for loyalty, I guess. It seems Harold had a long-term plan. He was going to tread gingerly for the first two months, get the people to trust their new government, keep the old ways. Then he was going to propose just one small change to the charter."

"What change?" Daryl asks.

"No personal firearms. He was going to propose it as a way to avoid accidents and drunken altercations, for the safety of the people, of course."

"Of course," Carol says dryly.

"Only the patrol and guards and officers and manager would get firearms, and they'd all be appointed by Harold, of course. And as judge of the court, he would guide the selection of a favorable jury to approve the change. Then, in another month, when the people had gotten used to being disarmed, he'd scrap the charter and juries entirely and establish martial law. Do whatever the hell he wanted."

Shannon shakes her head. "Positively Machiavellian. I didn't know Harold had it in him. And I thought I was good judge of character."

"Some detective I am," Garland mutters. "I didn't see  _any_  of it coming."

"'Cause ya didn't hang with 'em," Daryl says.

"A fair point. I see now why my lovely wife has so often pushed me to do so."

"My pushing almost got you killed," Shannon says.

"My blinders almost got me killed." Garland sighs. "All along I've thought Harold would make a better captain than the captain. Captain John was lewd and crude, greedy and mildly corrupt, but he  _never_ would have done  _anything_  like that. For the most part, he honored the charter. John risked his life for Jamestown, against cannibals and raiders, again and again. But if you had put those two men before me, two days ago, and had asked me to choose which was the better…" He laughs bitterly.

"Don't beat yerself up over it," Daryl tells him. "Can't see through everyone."

"And you were right about one thing," Carol says. "You told Shannon Harold was the most competent of all the naval officers. And he was. Competent enough to almost pull off a mutiny."

"He  _would_  have pulled it off, if not for you and Daryl. And for your assistance, I will be forever grateful."

[*]

Daryl and Carol linger on the periphery of the funeral, inside the bulwark, leaned back against a cannon and looking through the window toward the graveyard. The whole town is there, in the field behind the crosses, except probably the guards at the front gates.

"Damn that's a lotta people," Daryl mutters.

Grandma Bonnie, a skinny thing, struggles, weeping, to lift a shovel of dirt to dump on the manager's coffin. Shannon assists her. Later, when Hank is being buried, Garland tips his hat to the coffin while it's being lowered. When it's time for the captain's coffin to be sunk into the depths of the earth, two of the women from the whorehut throw themselves on it, wailing.

"Damn," Daryl murmurs. "Think they actually loved 'em?"

"Maybe they're mourning their lost income."

Daryl chuckles, and then growls at himself for laughing. Carol frowns at herself, too. "He wasn't an  _evil_  man," Carol says. "He didn't deserve to die that way."

After all the coffins are lowered, the town crier, in his booming voice, announces there will be a town meeting on the docks in one hour.

When that hour arrives, Daryl and Carol join the crowd, at a distance, by sitting atop a low stone wall in the grass behind the docks. The sheriff stands on the deck of the  _Susan Constant_  and speaks through a portable, battery operated microphone taken from the museum, so everyone can hear him.

Children run about the docks, weaving in and out from among the standing adults, while elders sit on benches. The crowd murmurs like a bee hive, as rumors over what happened last night drift from person to person. Garland silences them. Then he explains, as succinctly as he can, what happened. He tells them of Daryl and Carol's roles in thwarting his own murder, adding, "So the jury who released them? You can all be proud of your decision."

There's clapping, but Daryl doesn't know if it's for him and Carol or for the jury.

"There will be a trial for treason," Garland announces. "I have no further suspects at this time beyond those who are in jail, and you can anticipate no witch hunts."

Sighs of relief bubble through the crowd.

"Does this mean  _you're_  captain now?" a man in farmer's overalls shouts.

"I'm not sure I  _deserve_  to be your captain," the sheriff replies through his microphone, and the whispering crowd falls silent in shock. "This is my second major misjudgment since I've been here. I didn't see this conspiracy coming, any more than I saw that raid coming."

"You solved the old sheriff's murder!" a deputy shouts.

"You solved the rape of that poor girl!" a fisherman shouts. "You caught the fugitives!"

"You located those missing scavengers!" a woman yells.

"You saved my whole family!" a teenage boy shouts. "We were starving in the wilderness, and you brought us all to safety here at Jamestown."

The shouts of support begin to overlap each other, and Garland holds out a hand to silence them and the voices die down bit by bit.

"There's much to be done," Garland says, "and you do need someone who's been in the government to set things in motion. I'll be that man for you, at first. But now that our government has imploded, and I'm the only one left, I think it's time for an actual  _election_. On Wednesday, you will all have a chance to elect eight representatives of your own to replace the old hierarchy, not with a new hierarchy, but with a council of equals, a town council."

Whispering rips through the crowd.

"I will, for the time being, serve as the ninth member and chairman of that council," the sheriff continues, "as it finds its footing, but three months from now, we'll hold elections again, including for  _my_ position of chairman. From that point on, after the transition, elections will be annual. But in three months, if you think I've served you well in this time of transition, you can elect me to continue that role. And if you don't, you can throw me out."

The crowd hums with murmurs of surprise.

"What say you, people of Jamestown? Shall we forge forward with a representative democracy?"

The crowd erupts in cheers. Carol laughs and leans back against Daryl's shoulder as fisherman hats and straw hats and baseball caps and sailor's caps go flying in the air.


	26. Trial for Treason

Shannon tells her husband to get some sleep, but Garland insists he has more work to do in the captain's old office. An hour before dinner is ready, Shannon asks Daryl to retrieve him. Daryl finds the sheriff asleep at the captain's desk, face down in a sea of manila file folders and ledgers.

Garland snorts awake when Daryl raps his knuckles on the desk. "How long have I been passed out here?"

"Hell if I know. But supper's almost ready."

Garland rubs his eyes and follows Daryl out of the office. As they walk past the herb garden with the field of flags just outside the museum, the sheriff says, "I need to ask you a favor, which I have no right to ask. I'm trying to arrange a speedy trial for the traitors. Jury selection should be complete by tomorrow afternoon. I was hoping you and Carol would stay on just one more day so you can give your testimony in person in court and then leave Monday morning instead."

Daryl's throat rumbles with an uncertain noise.

"You're under no obligation. I can have the court reporter take your formal depositions in the morning before you leave instead. It won't be as convincing, but…It will have to do."

"Let me talk to Carol 'bout it. See what she wants to do."

[*]

That night, after dinner, when they go to the living room for tea, Garland promptly falls asleep, sitting up on the couch, with his head on Shannon's shoulder. Carol carefully takes the teacup from his hand and sets it on the end table, and then tells Shannon, "I think we're turning in. Daryl and I talked about the trial. We'll testify tomorrow afternoon and leave on Monday morning instead."

"Oh thank you!" Shannon half whispers. "Garland will be so relived. And, I'm not gonna lie. I'll enjoy one more night with y'all."

Carol locks the door to the bedroom when they go inside. Daryl looks at her curiously when she does it. "Shannon told me her mother walked in on them once," Carol explains. "Well, ran in on them, with a kitchen knife. She thought Garland was hurting Shannon."

"This mean we're havin' sex?" Daryl asks.

"What do you think it means?"

Daryl grins, wraps an arm around her, and draws her flush against his chest. He scrapes her earlobe with his teeth. When she shivers in response, that alone is enough to turn him on.

[*]

The sounds of early morning life in the settlement mingle with Carol's dreams. Someone is sawing wood, and Carol dreams of Daryl sawing open a walker. Only in her dream he's not with Rick. He's with her. She's watching him drive down his knife into the walker and rip down from the chest– thunk,  _saw, saw, saw_ , thunk  _saw, saw, saw_ , thunk,  _saw, saw, saw_. She's watching and crying, "Did it eat my baby?"

Daryl, so young, so much less grizzled, his cheeks almost clean shaven around his feather-light goatee, reaches into the walker's gut and pulls out a mangled hunk of undigested fur. Carol's reaching for the bloody mess when a church bell rings.

"Sophia!" cries Daryl, his voice lighter, less graveled by cigarettes and time. He goes crashing through the woods, snapping branches on the ground, his crossbow loose in one hand, while Carol runs fast behind, crying, "How do you know it didn't eat my baby?"

"'Cause I cut the motherfucker – "

"- Open." Daryl's real-life voice jerks her out of the dream. He's standing naked by the bedroom window. He closes the shutters and lets the latch fall into the eyehole lock. "Damn that chapel bell is loud." He crawls into the bed and pulls her back against his chest. He must sense the sad tension in her, because he says, "'S wrong?"

"I don't want to talk about it." She rolls over in his arms, urges him on his back, and settles her head against his chest. "Just hold me."

He does, but there's a stiffness in his muscles. "'S a'ight last night?" he asks finally. "The sex?"

"Of course. The sex was good."

"I ain't got to do it that way again, if ya don't like it."

All he did was flip her over onto her stomach after she came, lift her slightly onto her knees, and finish by taking her from behind. "That way's fine."

"If ya don't like somethin', Carol, just tell me. Don't want ya doin' what ya did with – " He's about to say Ezekiel, Carol realizes, but he falls silent.

"I'm not upset about the sex." She lifts her head to look at him. "I just had a really bad dream."

"What dream?"

"It was about Sophia," she admits, because keeping it in isn't going to make the pain any lighter, and he's here to share her burden, after all. He was there back then, too.

Daryl reaches out and with the callused tip of his thumb wipes a single stray tear from beneath her eye. He does a partial sit up to kiss the damp spot along her cheek, and then lies back down again so she can curl against him. His arms are no longer tense around her, and she sinks into them.

Carol cries a little more, wetting his flesh with her tears, and then pulls away and swipes them all away. She kisses his bare shoulder, props her head up by one hand, and lies sideways to look at him. "I'll tell you if I don't like something in bed. I promise. But you know…it's not all about what I like. I care about what you like, too."

"Ain't 'n issue," he says. "'Cause ain't nothin' I don't like."

She splutters out a laugh and he smiles. "Oh, I bet I could find something you don't like," she assures him.

"Nah."

"Well, I found this." With two fingers, she tickles a vulnerable spot just above his hip.

"Stahp!" He twists away.

She attacks the same spot again, and he laughs like a little boy and squirms more, so she comes in for the tickle again.

Daryl seizes her wrists in each of his hands, rolls her onto her back and pins her arms against the bed above her head. "I said stahp." Then his tongue snakes out from between his lips as he rakes his eyes over her naked breasts.

Carol's stomach growls, loudly, and she laughs.

Daryl sighs and throws himself on his back. The bed shifts slightly. "Better rustle ya up some grub, huh?" he asks.

"I could eat."

The little wattle and daub cabin is emptied of its residents when Daryl and Carol emerge into the living room. The blankets Garland and Shannon have been using to make their nest before the fire are neatly folded on the back of the couch, and the two pillows are stacked against either arm. There's a note on the little wooden table in the kitchen nook, lain between two plates covered in tinfoil.

_Went to Sunday service. Left you this breakfast. Trial's at 3 pm. Feel free to explore Jamestown and enjoy your day off until then. And THANK YOU again. – Shannon_

Steam seeps out from underneath the tin foil as Daryl strips it back. The plate is near overflowing with scrambled eggs, real bacon, breakfast potatoes mixed with onions, and fresh strawberries. Shannon has also left them two 8-ounce glasses filled with apple juice that looks like it was recently defrosted. A few thin chunks of ice still float on its surface.

"You should save Garland's life more often," Carol teases as she enjoys the decadent thank-you breakfast.

Daryl shovels food into his mouth, and between bites, says, "They actually go to church?"

"Well why not?"

"'S the point of that shit?"

"I go." Carol puts her fork down and draws her cup of apple juice toward herself.

Daryl slows in his eating and looks up from his plate at her. "Ya go? To church?"

"We have a service in the school theater on Saturday evening. I go. There's a former rabbi who runs it."

"Rabbi?" he asks.

"It's ecumenical. He doesn't mention Jesus, of course, but lots of Christians also come and say their own prayers in their own way. Nabila comes, too, and she's Muslim. There's music and singing and he gives a little inspirational talk. People share prayer requests. It's nice."

"Don't expect me to go, do ya?" he almost shouts.

"Well, not if it alarms you that much!" she replies.

He lowers his voice. "Just don't get the point. God ain't exactly been answerin' prayers 'round here."

She smiles. "Well, you don't know what prayers I've prayed." She sips her juice. "Don't worry. I won't ask you to go. But you could try it one time. Just to see if you like it."

"Ain't gonna like it."

"Well, that's decided," she says. "Anything else you know you'll never like without even trying it?" She takes a big sip of juice.

"Anal."

Juice splutters out of Carol's mouth. Daryl wipes it from his face with his fingers and then begins to suck the juice off his fingers.

When Carol's done laughing, she says, "I thought you said there's  _nothing_  you don't like."

"Thought that one was understood," he says. "That hole's exit only."

Carol shrugs. "Well, it doesn't interest me anyway. But how do you feel about cunnilingus?"

"Colonel who?"

Carol rolls her eyes, and Daryl chuckles. "Ain't an expert," he says. "But 'm happy to practice on ya 'til I become one."

After breakfast, Daryl and Carol take a walk around Jamestown, exploring all the nooks and crannies, getting ideas, and discussing improvements to the Kingdom.

Then they row out onto the James River in a rowboat, drop anchor, strip down to their underwear, and take a swim. They splash each other playfully, and Daryl gives chase when Carol tries to flee.

She's no match for him in the water, and he tugs her back to the row boat, where they hold onto the side with one hand while they kiss. When they see the bow of the  _Susan Constant_  turning a bend in the river, Daryl hefts her back in the boat and scurries in after her to pull up anchor, row to the side, and clear a path. She dresses quickly, not wanting the fishermen or sailors to whistle when they sail by, or, more to the point, not wanting Daryl to try to scale the ship and punch them if they do.

They have a late lunch at picnic table in the grass along the docks, because some men who are eating there invite them to share in their rations.

As they eat, the men ask a lot of questions. "Is it true you killed two at once, with a knife in each hand?" one of the fishermen asks Daryl.

"How did you overpower a man as tall as the commander?" a farmer asks Carol.

"You killed all five of them?" a sailor asks.

"The sheriff got one, I heard," a second farmer insists. "Isn't that right?"

The questions fly back and forth as the fish disappears from tin plates and is washed down with water.

Later, Daryl and Carol are relaxing on a bench in the settlement, watching children play horseshoes in the dirt courtyard, when Garland comes to get them for the trial.

Gawkers pack the pews of the chapel. Still more, looking like they just stepped out of the fields or off the docks, stand leaned against the walls. The defendants – the captured Lieutenant Brown, and the apprehended whore Mary Anderson – sit on the side pew on the stage with their defense attorney. Carol is sandwiched between Daryl and Shannon in the first row on the left – the witnesses' pew - as Garland takes the stage.

"Usually the captain presides over these trials as judge,” Garland announces to the packed court room, “but as he is no longer with us, I've appointed Ana Carter to play that role."

There are some doubtful murmurs in the crowd of onlookers. Garland raises a hand to silence them. "She won't have the power to overturn the jury's verdict," he assures them. " She's just going to keep things on track during the trial. I chose her because she was a judge before the Great Sickness, and she knows our legal customs well. It will be up to the Town Council – once we  _have_  a Town Council - to confirm her in this position going forward."

Garland comes down from the stage and squeezes into the last seat in the witnesses' pew beside Shannon.

Earl, the deputy-bailiff, intones, "All rise. Court is in session. The Honorable Judge Ana Carter presiding."

A middle-age woman with long, black hair emerges from the sacristy, smiles at Earl, and takes a seat at the makeshift bench. "All may be seated."

As bottoms thud into pews, the court reporter picks up her pencil and poises it against her legal pad.

The defense attorney has apparently advised his clients not to testify, and Daryl is the first to be called to the stand – a blue plastic chair beside the bench. He gives his account of events in response to questions from the prosecutor, Mr. Washington, a tall black man in dark blue jeans and a crisp, white polo shirt. "Thank you for your testimony today," he says when Daryl has provided all the details. "I have no further questions."

"Do you wish to cross examine, James?" the judge asks the defense attorney.

The defense attorney, an auburn-haired man in black slacks and a white button-down dress shirt, rises, strolls over to stand beside Daryl, and clears his throat. "You say the lieutenant commander attempted to slit Sheriff Garland's throat?"

"Yeah."

"At any time, did the defendant – " James points to the captured lieutenant in the side pew on the stage – "attempt to kill the sheriff?"

"Well, he knocked the gun out his hand," Daryl answers.

"The gun out of the sheriff's hand?" the defense attorney asks. "So the sheriff was aiming a gun at my client?"

"Well, 'cause the lieutenant commander was tryin' to slit his throat. 'N Commander Harrison, he'd just slit the manager's throat. 'N the whore had just stabbed the captain."

"Please refer to the co-defendant as  _Mary Anderson_ ," the judge tells Daryl, "or as  _the defendant_ , and not as  _the whore_."

"Yes'm."

"If the  _lieutenant commander_  was trying to slit Sheriff Garland's throat," the attorney asks, "why did Sheriff Garland aim the gun at my client _,_ the _lieutenant_?"

The prosecutor rises. "Objection. Speculation."

The judge pounds her gavel. "Sustained. Jim, that's a question you can pose to Sheriff Garland."

The defense attorney nods. "So you saw the defendant knock a gun out of Sheriff Garland's hand. A gun that was pointed directly  _at_  the defendant?"

"Yeah," Daryl mutters.

"Did you see my client, Lieutenant Brown, kill the manager?"

"Well, no," Daryl mumbles. "Harold did that."

"Did you see Lieutenant Brown stab the captain in the neck?"

"Well, no, the ho –  _Mary_  - did that, but he – "

" – No will suffice," the attorney interrupts him. "Did Lieutenant Brown attempt to kill you personally?"

"Well, no, not me, but he was out on – "

"- No will suffice," the defense interrupts again. "So in summary, you didn't see the defendant kill  _anyone_?"

"Seen 'em help bring the captain down! Took all five of 'em officers to do it."

"That's the captain!" a man standing in the back of the church shouts. "He don't go down easy!"

The audience erupts in agreement.

The judge bangs her gavel. "Order!"

The murmuring audience falls silent.

"Well there was quite a tumult onboard that deck I imagine," the defense attorney says. "And you were watching from a distance. In the dark. By starlight and moonlight."

"'N there were lanterns on the ship," Daryl insists.

"But it was  _dark_. And at a  _distance_. How do you  _know_  the defendant was trying to bring the captain down instead of trying to save him from the others?"

"'Cause I seen 'em toss the captain's body overboard with the others! 'N then I seen 'em get in a rowboat to go lookin' for the sheriff to kill 'em."

"How do you know he wasn't looking for the sheriff to rescue him?"

"'Cause I heard Harold order the lieutenant commander to split up 'n find Garland to kill 'em!"

"You heard Commander Harrison order the  _lieutenant commander_ ," the defense says. "Here we are, back to the  _lieutenant commander_ , who is not with us today and cannot testify as to my client's role, if any, in these events. How do you know it wasn't the intention of my client, Lieutenant Brown, to find Sheriff Garland in order to rescue him?"

Carol can see Daryl growing frustrated and hopes he doesn't lose his cool. "Well, 'cause he was in on it!"

"How do you  _know_  he was in on it? Do you have a window into his heart, mind, and soul?"

"Don't need no fuckin' window!" Daryl growls. "Seen 'em up there. Helpin' the rest."

"Language," the judge warns Daryl.

"How do you know things didn't simply unravel all around the lieutenant," the attorney asks, "and he found himself caught up in the midst of it, and like you, he bided his time in order to attempt to save the sheriff?"

"He pulled a gun on the deputies!" Daryl insists.

"Did he fire it, or did he drop it?"

"Well…he dropped it when they – "

"- He pulled his gun out," the defense attorney interrupts. "To drop it when the deputies came to apprehend him. He surrendered to the deputies. He  _cooperated_  with the deputies. My two clients, in fact, were the  _only_  ones to cooperate with the deputies, and so they were the  _only_  ones to come out of this whole fiasco alive. Now why do you  _imagine_  the lieutenant  _cooperated_ , if he was  _in_  on it? The penalty for treason is death. So if my client was really in on it, why wouldn't he go out guns blazing? Why wouldn't he – "

"Objection!" The prosecutor stands. "Speculation.  _And_  leading the witness  _and_  the jury."

"Sustained." Ana pounds her gavel. "That's the second time, James. Tread lightly."

The defense attorney looks Ana over warily, but he nods and says, "I have no further questions for this witness."

Carol can feel the tension radiating off of Daryl when he sits down next to her. She puts a hand on his knee and squeezes.

The prosecutor calls Garland to the stand next, and his testimony pretty much destroys the defensive case. Garland refers to the correspondence he discovered in the ship's cabins indicating that the lieutenant was to be given the manager's old position.

Earl, the bailiff-deputy, brings forth the evidence bags containing the letters to the bench, smiling at Ana as he sets them down.

"Did you see the co-defendant," the defense attorney asks, pointing to the whore, "kill anyone or attempt to kill anyone?"

"No," Garland replies. "But she distracted Hank so the sailors could slit his throat."

"She distracted him? And how did she manage that?"

Garland shifts uncomfortably and clears his throat. His face flushes slightly. "She…uh leaned over the deck of the  _Godspeed_ ," Garland stutters, "sans shirt, and proceeded to…uh…shake her…assets."

A man in the audience, who sits at the end of the last pew, lets out a cat-calling whistle. The judge slams her gavel down. "Order! Do that again and I'll hold you in contempt."

"You can hold me any way you like, sweetheart," the man replies.

"Bailiff," Ana says wearily.

"Gladly." Earl strides down the aisle, seizes the man by the arm, and drags him out of the pew. The man objects as Earl shoves him backward out the chapel door.

A few men disappear outside to watch the unfolding scene, but the court returns to order.

"So, in other words," the defense attorney says, "my client merely did what she was paid to do? Which was to entertain the men onboard the  _Godspeed_?"

"Hank wasn't onboard the  _Godspeed_ ," Sheriff Garland replies.

"No, Hank wasn't onboard the  _Godspeed_ , was he?" the defense attorney says to the jury. He then turns back to the stand. "But  _you_  were. Maybe she was just bent over that rail because she was shaking her ass for  _you_ , Sheriff."

Garland flushes completely red.

"I mean, she  _was_  paid to entertain  _you_ , was she not?"

The prosecutor stands. "Objection. Relevance."

The judge pounds her gavel. "Overruled. I'll allow it. Sheriff, answer the question."

"I believe she was hired by the captain to serve drinks to the men at the poker game, including me."

"Hired by the captain?" the defense attorney asks.

"Yes."

"Not by  _my client_ , the  _lieutenant_?"

"I don't know what role the lieutenant did or did not play in the hiring, but your client was a regular client of both of the professional ladies onboard the  _Godspeed_  that night, as was Commander Harrison."

"So in short, you have no evidence that my client, Mary Anderson, was actually involved in this conspiracy at all, do you?"

"She  _told_  me she was," Garland answers. "Lieutenant Brown told her that when he was manager, she could be the manager's wife, and all she had to do was distract the patrolman during the poker game."

"So she didn't know they were actually going to kill Hank? Or the manager? Or the captain? Or you?"

"I don't know how else she imagines Lieutenant Brown would have become manager," Garland replies.

"Is it possible she could have thought there was going to be a bloodless reorganization? That she thought all of you had gathered on that boat that day to discuss a restructuring of the government, the way you yourself hope to restructure the government going forward?"

The prosecutor springs up. "Objection. Speculation."

Ana pounds her gavel. "Sustained. The sheriff cannot know your client's mind, Jim. That's a question to pose to her,  _if_  you let her take the stand."

"I have no further questions for this witness."

Garland hastens off stage and sighs his way into the pew. Shannon kisses his cheek and says, "Good job, baby."

The madam of the whorehut is called to the stand next, and her account books are submitted as evidence. She's in her sixties and reminds Carol of her own mother at that age –plump, a little white-haired, a little wrinkled, but with a hint, behind the eyes, of the great beauty she once was, before time and men wore her down.

Madam Linda testifies of the commander and lieutenant's frequent visits to the whorehut and of their repeated preference for the two particular whores who were onboard the  _Godspeed_  that night.

"And did you overhear any private conversations between my client, Mary Anderson, and either the lieutenant or the commander?" the defense attorney asks her.

"No," Madam Linda replies, "but we have room dividers in the hut. There's some measure of privacy, and I don't make it my business to listen in."

"Well, I can't imagine there's a lot of pillow talk in a brothel.”

"You'd be surprised."

Earl is called to the stand next and testifies of boarding the  _Godspeed_  to recover the whores and having to shoot one of the two when she leveled the sheriff's revolver at him.

"But my client, Mary Anderson, did not attempt to assault you in any way?" the defense asks.

"No," Earl answers. "She surrendered, once we found her, but she was in hiding down below deck."

"When you recovered the captain's body, were you able to ascertain which knife wounds came from which knives?"

"No, but there were a lot of knife wounds. Fourteen, to be exact. It took all five officers to bring – "

"- or so Daryl and Garland tell you. You weren't there, were you?"  

"No," Earl admits.

Next, one of the deputies who apprehended Lieutenant Brown is called to the stand. On the cross-examination, he's asked by the defense attorney, "Did the defendant, Lieutenant Brown, attempt to shoot you?"

"He pulled his gun, along with the lieutenant commander."

"Did he attempt to shoot you?" the attorney repeats.

"I shot the lieutenant commander when he pointed his gun at me," the deputy replies. "At which point Lieutenant Brown dropped his gun."

"So he did  _not_  attempt to shoot you?"

"I believe he would have shot me," the deputy replies, "if I had not made it clear I would shoot him as I did the lieutenant commander."

"Did you recover Lieutenant Brown's knife?"  

"No. I presume he dropped it in the - "

"- No presumptions," the attorney interrupts. "So you have no evidence the lieutenant was among those who stabbed the captain?"

"We have eyewitness testimony from Daryl Dixon and the sheriff," the deputy replies.

"Eyewitness testimony from the sheriff, in the midst of a very confusing tumult, and from Mr. Dixon, in the darkness, from the docks?"

"Objection! Framing."

"Sustained." The judge pounds her gavel.

"No further questions for this witness."

The undertaker is called to testify as to the nature of the bodies he prepared for burning or burial. Finally, Carol must take her place in the blue plastic chair beside the judge's bench. With the leading of the prosecutor, she gives her testimony, and then steadies herself for the defense attorney's questions. She's seen what he's done to Daryl, Garland, and the deputies.

"When you unsheathed your knife, what had Commander Harrison done to Shannon?"

"He was moving in to stab her," Carol answers calmly and firmly.

"He had his knife drawn and raised?"

"He'd unsnapped his sheath," she replies.

"So he  _didn't_  have his knife drawn and raised when you drew yours?"

"Because I didn't  _let_  him get it drawn and raised," she replies, and some woman in the audience shouts, "You go, girl!" which means the judge has to call for order again.

"So the commander heard you unsheathing your knife and turned to defend himself against an attack from behind?"

"A  _defense_  from behind," Carol says.

"Well that's a strange definition of  _defense_ , now, isn't it?"

"I was defending Shannon."

"Against the commander's knife?" the defense attorney asks. "Which was  _not_  drawn?"

"Not  _yet_  drawn," Carol corrects him. "He'd unsnapped the sheath. He had his hand on the hilt."

"So, for all you know, he was planning to help Shannon cut a loose string that had come unraveled from her shirt when you made the rash decision to yank your knife out and come at him?"

"I don't think he locked the cabin door behind himself in order to help her with a string."

There's snickering in the pews.

"And he promptly kicked me in my wounded side," Carol continues, "and then came in and tried to stab me."

"After  _you_  tried to stab  _him_?"  

"I didn't try to stab him initially. I unsheathed my knife to have it handy in case he tried to stab Shannon. Which I was quite certain he planned to do. I stabbed him after he kicked me against the table, tried to stab me, and was only prevented from doing so by Shannon slamming the shotgun across his back."

"When he arrived at the cabin, did Harold say anything to you whatsoever about my client?" The attorney points to the lieutenant.

"No," Carol says.

"So you knew nothing whatsoever about the purported conspiracy when these events in the cabin unraveled?"

"No."

"And so you have no reason to believe my client the lieutenant even  _knew_  that Harold was paying you ladies a visit? And certainly no reason to believe my client, Mary Anderson, knew that Commander Harrison was paying you ladies a visit? No reason to believe either of my clients were in any way complicit in whatever activity unraveled in that cabin?"

"Objection!" shouts the prosecutor. "Speculation and leading."

"Save it for your closing, Jim," Ana warns the defense attorney.

"I have no further questions for this witness."

When Shannon takes the stand, she gives a very lively, descriptive testimony that has the jury and the entire courtroom enthralled. She paints Harold as a master villain in a movie, and Carol as her winged savior from on high, and downplays her own role in making her way to the guns over the fireplace or in twice slamming Harold across the back with unloaded firearms.

"It was just beastly," Shannon says, "the way Harold kicked poor Carol right where that fugitive stabbed her! Like he was  _trying_  to inflict the most pain possible! Like he just  _knew_  all his ambitious plans were unravelling before his very eyes." She leans forward and looks right at the women in the jury. "You know that look a man gets in his eyes, when he sees his power slipping from him." The women in the jury nod.

"Objection!" cries the defense attorney. "Leading the jury."

"Sustained."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Shannon says innocently. "I just can't get that desperate look of Harold's out of my memories. It haunts my dreams. I think he would have slaughtered both of us, and then my mama, and then my baby boy, and all so that dreadful  _lieutenant - "_ She motions to the witness box. "Could be manager like he  _always_  wanted."

The eyes of the jury turn to the lieutenant, who tries to make his face an unreadable wall.

"And poor Hank," Shannon continues. She looks at the men in the jury now. "Being manipulated by a woman like that, when he was just a hardworking man,  _trying_  to do his job, and she played on his vulnerabilities to make him vulnerable to the blade."

The men in the jury shift uncomfortably.

"Objection!" the defense cries.

"Sustained," the judge says. "The witness will stick to answering the questions."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Shannon says, but Carol doesn't think she's sorry at all, and, despite the defense attorney's objections, and his obfuscations, in the end, Shannon, as the last witness, leaves the jury with the lingering impression of the defendants' guilt. Apparently the prosecutor knew what he was doing when he made her the last witness to take the stand.

Shannon rejoins Carol in the witness pew, and the attorneys make their brief closing statements. The jury remains to deliberate in the chapel as the pews are cleared.


	27. Saying Goodbye

While the jury is deliberating, Shannon takes Carol to the storehouse and pulls down the big cardboard box marked  _silver and gold_  because, she says, "You're getting married in a few weeks and you and Daryl are going to need rings."

"This is going to double as my wedding ring, too." Carol caresses the carving of the Cherokee Rose in her cameo.

"Well then  _Daryl's_  going to need a ring." Shannon opens the box and points inside it. "You need to mark your territory, or women are going to be all over him like white on rice."

Carol laughs. "I don't think Daryl has that problem."

"Are you  _kidding_  me? With those  _arms_  and those  _skills_? He can fight four men at once, scale and gut a fish like nobody's business, ride a horse, pluck a duck, and you said he's a bow hunter, too? Honey, if you aren't seeing women making eyes at him, then you aren't  _looking_."

"Are  _you_  making eyes at him?" Carol quips.

"I'm a happily married woman. But I'm not  _blind_."

Carol chuckles. Ed used to grow enraged every time another man flirted with her or found her the least bit attractive. Carol can't abide that kind of jealousy anymore, least of all in herself. Instead, she feels proud to know another woman notices the finer qualities of  _her_  man. She crouches down to rummage through the piles and piles of rings. "I'm not sure Daryl even  _wants_  to wear a ring. None of these scream Daryl to me. Maybe just a simple silver band." She plucks up one, but it's already inscribed with the names Matthew and Rebecca, so she tosses it back.

"He can always tattoo your name on him. Garland did that, in a heart on his shoulder. Unfortunately it's not  _my_  name. That was his second fiancé."

Carol smiles. "I'm going to miss you. You're nothing if not entertaining. I wish you could come to our wedding."

"I do, too. But your Kingdom's a long way away, and Garland has a lot of work ahead of him to set this ship straight in this three-month transition period he just…." She flings her hand as if tossing a ball - "threw out there. I don't know if that was the best idea, to be honest. These people aren't accustomed to ruling themselves. I just hope they elect him to lead the Town Council when those three months are up."

The rings sift through Carol’s fingers like grains of sand on the shore. She fishes out another plain silver band, except, when she gets it up into the light, it's not plain. A black etching runs through the center of the band: an arrow, wrapped nearly all the way around, so that the tail almost touches the tip. "I think I've found just the one."

[*]

Because Carol has disappeared somewhere with Shannon, Daryl sticks by Garland's side as he heads back toward the cabin, which is empty of Grandma Bonnie and Gary. Daryl slumps into the armchair. "Sorry if I was shit on the stand," he mutters.

"You were fine," Garland says as he eases down onto the couch.

It's not long before the women join them, Shannon sitting next to Garland and Carol sitting on the arm of Daryl's chair to show him the ring. "What do you think? Would you wear it? If you don't want to, that's fine with me."

"Don't believe her," Garland says. "It won't be fine."

Daryl chuckles as he takes the ring.

"It will, too," Carol insists. "With me."

Daryl turns the ring over in his fingers. It has an  _arrow_  on it. "'S bad ass." He slides it onto his ring finger, but when he turns his hand upside down, it slides off.

Carol slides off the arm of his chair and recovers it from the floor. She slips it into her pocket. "We'll get the blacksmith to resize it when we get home.  _If_  you want to wear it."

"Wanna wear it," Daryl says, because he thinks Garland is right, that maybe it does matter to Carol. She's no bullshitter, his woman, but sometimes she doesn't quite know what she wants, or just how much she wants it.

"You were great on that stand today," Garland tells Shannon. "I love you, darling."

Shannon kisses his nose. "I love you, too, baby. So much so I'm not even going to make you go see  _Ghost_  with me tonight after all. Carol, you want to join me? I have two tickets."

" _Tickets_?" Carol asks.

"The museum theater only seats fifty, and we're on electricity restrictions, so we have to sell tickets to ration seats. I bought two with some tobacco. I was going to make Garland take me, but I didn't know y'all would still be here. I say we make it a Girls' Night Out."

"I'm up for it," Carol agrees. "Will there be popcorn?"

"Oh will there ever," Shannon tells her. "With  _butter_."

**[*]**

The jury is ready to issue its verdict in under forty minutes. Back in the court room, Judge Ana Carter orders juror number one to rise. The man speaks with a slight Spanish accent when he reads the paper he unfolds. "We, the jury, on the charge of accessory to the attempted murders of Carol and Shannon, we find the lieutenant  _not_  guilty."

Garland shifts uneasily in the pew. Daryl tenses and Carol takes his hand.

"On the charge of murder of the captain, find the lieutenant  _not_  guilty."

Daryl's fingers curl tightly through Carol's.

"On the lesser charge of  _accessory_  to the murder of the captain, we find the lieutenant  _guilty_."

Garland relaxes slightly.

"On the charge of accessory to the murder of the manager, Rodrigo Martinez, we find the lieutenant  _guilty_. On the charge of accessory to the murder of Hank Conway, we find the defendant  _guilty_. On the charge of accessory to the attempted murder of Sheriff Garland, we find the lieutenant  _guilty_. On the charge of conspiracy to commit treason, we find the lieutenant  _guilty_. And on the charge of treason," here Garland seems to hold his breath, "we find the lieutenant  _guilty_."

Garland lets out a sigh, and Judge Ana asks, "And what is your sentence?"

"We sentence the lieutenant to death by hanging."

Scattered applause erupts from the audience in the church, and the lieutenant's stone face finally gives way to something like fear.

"And your verdict in the charges against Mary Anderson?"

"On the charge of accessory to the murder of Hank Conway, we find the defendant  _guilty_."

The whore screams "Nooo!" from her pew, and her attorney silences her.

"On the charge of conspiracy to commit treason, we find the defendant  _guilty_."

The whore begins to weep.

"And on the charge of treason, we find the defendant  _guilty_."

"And what is your sentence?" the judge asks.

"We sentence the defendant to banishment, to be deposited fifteen miles outside the gates of Jamestown, with weapons, a tent, and three days of rations."

"Nooooooooo!" the whore howls. "That's worse than hanging!"

"What the hell did she think was gonna happen?" Shannon whispers to Carol.

[*]

"Thank God for your fiancé," Garland tells Daryl as he casts his line and it lands with a plop in the James River. A lantern hangs from the posts on either side of them as they fish with poles off a wooden pier, and an empty cooler stands to Daryl's right. "She not only saved my wife's life, but she got me out of going to that damn movie."

"They're gonna come home horny, though, right?" asks Daryl, recalling what the hunters said about the movie. "'Cause of the pottery scene?"

"One can only hope. If not…there's still a little liquor left from the captain's tithe. He was saving it for the whorehut."

Daryl reels in his line, takes off a fish, and tosses it flopping in the cooler before casting again.

"Ya gonna shut that place down now?"

"I'm going to  _propose_  the new council do so. Or at least regulate it heavily as a public health matter. But that's up to them. If they  _do_  shut it down, we'll need to find some use for those remaining women. They're not exactly inclined to work in the farm fields or on the docks or in the gardens or in construction.”

Daryl looks over his shoulder at the sound of bootsteps and sees Earl approaching.

"Want to fish with us, deputy?" Garland asks.

"I'm on duty."

"Ah, I forgot."

"The whore hanged herself," Earl tells him, "in her cell. With her dress."

Garland's in the middle of reeling in a fish and lets his line go slack. It whirs out. "Jesus."

"It's better than what would have eventually happened to her out there, in all honesty," Earl reasons. "And at least you got to honor your word to take the death penalty off the table."

"I suppose you're right. Have the undertaker bury her in an unmarked grave."

"Yes, Sheriff."

Earl begins to step away when Garland says, "Elections are on Wednesday. I nominated you for Town Council. Your wife, too."

"Ana?"

"Unless you have another wife I don't know about," Garland replies.

"Well, I'm honored, Sheriff, but I'm not sure it's the thing for me. I like my job."

"You would still do your job," Garland reasons. "The Town Council would be a part-time gig."

"I'm not much for making the rules, Sheriff. I'm more for enforcing them. But Ana will likely accept the nomination. " Earl nods to Daryl, who has set his pole on a stand for a moment. "I hear you're leaving tomorrow."

"Yeah," Daryl replies "headed home."

"It's a damn shame. We could use another man like you here at Jamestown, now that the captain's gone. You're a fighting machine." Earl holds his hand out. "Thank you for saving Jamestown from tyrants."

Daryl shakes, and the bailiff-deputy tips his hat to him before heading from the docks.

[*]

The girls don't come home horny. They come home gabbing and wanting to play cards. Grandma and Gary are in bed, so Garland cracks out the last of the captain's seized liquor. The little cabin reverberates with laughter as the band of four new friends, who already feel like old friends, drink and tell stories and joke between freshly dealt hands.

"Rummy!" Shannon yells, but Garland's already slapped his hand down over the card before she can. Her hand smacks his.

"Too bad that ain't his ass," Daryl says, and Carol howls with laughter.

"What?" Garland splutters.

"It's an inside joke, baby," Shannon tells him and leans over and kisses his cheek. "Now give me my card."

Garland pulls his hand out from under hers, with the card between his fingers, and extends it toward her.

"And stop looking at my  _assets_  while you hand it to me," Shannon insists.

Daryl laughs and takes a swig of moonshine.

Garland flicks the card at his wife. "Well what was I supposed to say on that stand?"

"Titties," Daryl tells him as he sets down the mason jar. "Like a  _normal_  red-blooded man."

"Well, I think Garland is quite the gentleman," Carol says.

"Thank you, Carol." Garland turns to his wife, "See, darling. Not  _everyone_  thinks I'm a prude."

"But I think you're an  _adorable_  prude," Shannon assures him.

"We sure are going to miss you two around here," Garland says.

"I've had a lot of fun with you this week, Carol," Shannon agrees. "And Garland's not used to having a man he can talk to."

"But Daryl doesn't talk much," Carol says.

" _Exactly_ ," Shannon tells her.

"The gates of Jamestown will always be open to both of you," Garland assures them. "If you ever decide to take another road trip."

[*]

Daryl feels like he's just had a missing appendage sewn back on when he finally slings his crossbow over his shoulder. In the museum parking lot, before the iron gates of Jamestown, Garland hands over Freckles's reins. The saddle bags look fuller than Daryl expected. "I gave you back whatever the captain and I took," Garland explains, "less what was already consumed. So mostly it's ammo and batteries and water. But I couldn't unilaterally divest my posse or the community of their share. So it's not much."

"'S fine. Saved the woman who's 'bout to be m' wife. Ya don't owe me nothin'."

"I owe you everything. You saved me. Carol saved Shannon. You both saved Jamestown."

Daryl shrugs. "Didn't do a damn thing you wouldn't of done in the same spot." He holds out his hand, palm open.

Garland grips it hard and shakes.

Shannon hugs Carol. "You take care of yourself," Carol says when she pulls away from the other woman's embrace. After she mounts her stallion, Carol waves goodbye one last time. Garland gives the thumbs up to the men at the gates, and they roll them open.

The hooves of the horses clomp across the parking lot, outside the gates, and onto the road that heads north to the Kingdom.

[*]

It's a good thing they didn't wait until the first night of their trip home to consummate their union, because they don't stay someplace romantic. A thunderstorm drives them off the road two hours earlier than they planned to stop. They're soaking wet when they seek refuge in an isolated self-storage facility a good four miles from any other businesses. Carol shoots the lock off of one of the rental units and Daryl rolls the metal door open, finds it completely empty, and they escape, with the horses, inside.

They can't light a fire in here without any ventilation, so they leave a lantern flashlight on, using two of the batteries Garland returned, and they share some room-temperature, canned Jamestown venison stew he also slipped into their saddle bags.

When Carol opens the map to plan tomorrow's route, she finds folded up inside it a page torn from the record of deaths at Jamestown, the one with her ancestor's name on it. "Looks like Garland left me a souvenir." After she folds up and puts away the map, They open up one of the sleeping bags and spread it flat, while keeping the other rolled to use as a pillow, and lie on their backs side by side and look up at the patterns the flashlight paints on the ceiling of the storage unit.

Carol's horse, Lancelot, shits on the cement. They can hear the plop, plop, plop. "It's going to smell lovely in here tonight," Carols says.

There's the crack of lighting and the rumble of thunder across the sky. The metal door of the storage unit rattles. The horses neigh, but soon settle.

"This unit was empty," Carol says, "but they were  _all_  locked. None of the other locks were busted off. This facility hasn't been looted yet."

"Might all be empty. Might of just been built when it happened or somethin'."

"Or they might  _all_  be full."

"Full of useless shit people can't be bothered to keep in their own damn houses," he says.

"Negative Nelly."

"Didn't say we weren't gonna check every damn one of 'em in the mornin'." He turns his head to her. "Wanna makeout?"

Now Freckles shits on the cement, and Carol purses her lips and says, "Ummm….No."

[*]

They manage to fall asleep to the pitter patter and ping ping ping of the rain, and when they awake and roll up the door, they're greeted by the purpled dawn. It's beautiful, but not nearly as beautiful to Daryl as what he discovers in the first storage unit: eight motorcycles.

"Hellllll yeah!"

"Oh, Pookie, they aren't going to run."

"Course not. But I bet they got some parts I want." He walks over to a series of boxes marked tools. "And I need some good tinkerin' toys."

"First see if there's a good pair of bolt cutters in there so we don't need to shoot off anymore locks. We can't waste bullets."

He finds one, and while he tinkers with the bikes, Carol heads over to the next storage unit. The next four units are empty. But the fifth is full of books, comic books, CDs, and records. Carol takes ten paperback books for the Kingdom.

"Got room for all that?" asks Daryl, startling her with his sudden presence.

"I'll just toss them if we find better things."

Daryl snags a handful of comic books for Hershel and Judith and two music records for himself – Led Zeppelin and Supertramp.

" _Supertramp_?" Carol asks. "That's the name of the band?"

"Ya ain't never listened to Supertramp?"

"I'm more of a country fan, myself. You like country?"

"Not unless ya mean Johnny Cash."

In the next unit, there's a large cardboard box marked  _Sporting Goods_. Daryl finds three packages of steel bolts for his crossbow, two packages of strings, and a bunch of targets, though he leaves the targets. "And you weren't going to check these units," Carol scolds him.

"Was gonna!" he insists. "Just didn't expect nothin'."

They clear all the units. Daryl salvages a half saddle bag full of motorcycle parts and a few small tools. Carol wipes down the bolt cutters and brings them with her. It's two hours after sunrise when they're back on the road.

[*]

They ride along the overgrown, grassy shoulder of the highway for a half hour, walking the horses slowly, and then veer off into the woods at the sound of trickling water. They find a creek in which to water the horses, and they scoop up and filter some water of their own to refill their canteens. "Hungry?" Daryl asks.

"I could eat."

"Any food left in them bags, or I need to try to hunt somethin'?" He scours the surface of the creek, the bank across from it, and the tree line beyond it. "Could probably get some squirrel."

Even as he says it, Carol's already pulling out a plastic ziplock bag from one of the saddle packs. There's something inside, wrapped in tinfoil.

"Hell's that?"

"No idea." She crouches down, sets the bag on the ground, and pulls out the tinfoil and sets it on the bag and begins to carefully unwrap it.

"Hell yeah!" Daryl exclaims.

There, inside, are two pieces of Grandma Bonnie's strawberry pie.

"For breakfast?" Carol asks. "Why not? We're on vacation."

They wolf down the pie and then Daryl jumps the narrow creek to go up the bank on the other side to take a piss. When he comes back, and is still at the top of the bank, Carol says, "My turn" and takes a running leap over the water. She gets one foot wet and Daryl chuckles.

"Well my legs aren't quite as long as yours."

Daryl looks up from her and across the bank at the sound of neighing. "Aww hell no!"

A man has emerged from somewhere in the woods on the opposite side and mounted Freckles. Daryl swivels his bow off his back and into his hands and lets loose an arrow at the back of his head, but the man ducks, spurs the horse off, and the arrow lodges in a tree. Carol whirls and begins running back through the creek. Daryl jumps down from the bank into the water with a splash. "Hell no!" He outruns Carol, vaults himself onto Lancelot, and spurs the steed in hot pursuit.


	28. The Journey Home

 

Lancelot, with Daryl guiding, crashes through the forest, jumps a fallen tree log and comes out on the highway. Daryl kicks the stallion and gets within a few feet of the fleeing Freckles-thief.

Daryl pulls up alongside Freckles and kicks his leg out hard. The heel of his boot makes contact with the thief's ribcage, and the man slides to the right. He tries stay on the horse, gripping with his thighs and clinging to the reins, but he ends up toppling over and being dragged a foot before he lets go of the reins and  _ooof-ooofs_  in a hard roll on the asphalt.

Daryl rears Lancelot to a stop and whistles for Freckles, who stops fleeing. Daryl whistles again, twice this time, and Freckles turns and walks her way gingerly back. By this time, the thief has pulled himself up into a standing position and is drawing his knife.

Daryl swings his crossbow from his back and aims it down at the thief. "Drop it! Now!"

The knife clatters to the ground and the man raises his hands. "Come on, Daryl. Don't shoot me man."

It's his old banished cellmate, from back in Jamestown, the man who freed his rapist brothers. "Daniel?"

"Hey, man, don't shoot."

Freckles has reached them now and stands facing Daryl, on the other side of Lancelot, blinking lazily.

"Ya tried to steal m'horse!" Daryl growls.

"I didn't know it was yours. I just saw it there. I ran out of the rations they gave me when they banished me, and I've scavenged and tried to hunt…but I haven't found any food in over a day. I'm desperate, and I'm hungry."

"You were gonna eat Freckles?" Daryl cries in horror.

"Who's Freckles?" Daniel asks, and then it seems to click with him that Freckles is not a person. He holds out a staying hand. "Oh, no, no. I wasn't going to  _eat_  your horse. I was just going to eat whatever was in the saddle bags."

"Ya ain't gettin' Grandma's pie, that's for damn sure."

"I wasn't trying to get Grandma's pie." Daniel gestures helplessly. "Man, I'm just trying to survive! I just didn't want my brothers to  _die_. And now I'm just trying to survive! I'm out here all alone….and…" He stumbles back, shaking his head. "You know what? Just shoot me." He raises his hands out. "Go ahead and shoot me. Before I starve to death or the cannibals get me."

Daryl growls and lowers his crossbow. "C'mere," he tells Freckles and makes a  _kiss-kiss_  sound until the horse saunters close. He digs around in one of the saddle bags until he finds something – an MRE. Garland returned both of those. He tosses it on the road before Daniel's feet. "Learn to hunt, asshole."

Daniel scoops up the MRE and runs off on foot before Daryl can change his mind. Daryl slides off of Lancelot, and with his crossbow swung again on his back, takes Freckles reins in one hand and Lancelot's in the other, and walks back toward Carol. She's out of the woods by the time he gets there and has started walking up the highway in his direction.

He hands Lancelot over to her. "Is the horse thief dead?" she asks.

"Nah. Gave 'em 'n MRE and sent 'em on his way."

" _Why?_ "

"'Cause a kindness ain't never wasted."

[*]

That night Carol gets her someplace special – a remote bed and breakfast nestled on the Rappahannock River with a wraparound porch, a large wood-burning fireplace in the main room downstairs, and a third-story balcony overlooking the river. Sure it's seen better days. The paint is peeling off in rows, and the downstairs windows are all boarded up. A thick layer of dust coats the furniture inside. But they only have to kill and haul out two walkers – the owners, perhaps, who locked it up tight against the fallen world and then died inside.

They take the boards off one of the windows for some fresh air and so they can hear the horses in the fenced-in backyard. The owners had a dog, judging by the decayed carcass in the corner of the yard. "This place ain't been looted. Dependin' how long into it they died, might have some good shit."

"Kitchen first," Carol says.

They find champagne, three unopened bottles of it, for making mimosas for the breakfast part of the B&B. "These will be great for our wedding," Carol says.

"Ain't gonna be enough for all the people yer gonna invite.”

"Fine, one tonight," Carol suggests, "one for our wedding night, and one for our first-year anniversary?"  

Daryl murmurs his agreement, but then says, "Gonna take a while to build the cabin. Where we sleepin' 'till then?"

"In my bedroom, I assumed."

"Nah."

Carol cocks her head and tries to process his objection. "Oh," she says finally. She shared that room with Ezekiel. Daryl was fine sleeping on the couch there when he visited, but he's not going to be fine making love to her under a roof or in a bed she shared with another man. "We can stay in one of the classroom trailers until the cabin is built. We'll throw a mattress on the floor. We have plenty of extras."

[*]

Daryl leaves Carol rummaging through the kitchen and goes looking for the shotgun shells for the shotgun they found downstairs. He finds them, eventually, in the library on the second floor, on the bookshelf, neatly stacked at the end of a row of books: eight gloriously full boxes.

When he returns to the kitchen, Carol has found an unopened cannister of salt, assorted herbs and spices, and a bag of unopened sugar. "I also found a box of Twinkies. Those are supposed to last forever, right?"

"Think 's just a myth. Guess we'll find out."

The Twinkies are hard and brittle, but they aren't  _spoiled_. They each eat one package and share the one remaining MRE before watching the sunset over the river from the balcony. Carol's cleaned out a couple of champagne flutes and when Daryl pops the cork the horses in the fenced-in yard below whinny.

"To our new adventure," Carol says and raises her flute to his.

He clinks hers and throws it back.

"Slow down and savor it," she tells him. "I think this is expensive stuff."

"How can ya tell?"

"I can't," she admits. "I just prefer to  _believe_  it's expensive stuff."

Daryl chuffs and slings an arm around her shoulders, and she leans against him as the last of the sun slips away.

They go back downstairs and Daryl lights the fire while Carol builds their love nest on the floor. They finish off the bottle of champagne, and she's a little buzzed because of the light dinner. She nibbles his ear and pleads, "Make love to me."

"Yer drunk."

"Just a little. But you know I'm willing."

He doesn't need further encouragement. He peels off her clothes and then his own before savoring every inch of her naked body, his fingers trailing like feathers over her flesh, and then his warm lips following the trail left by the heat of his fingers. When he's worked his way down to her knees, he eases her legs apart and then teases the inside of her thigh with gentle nips and sucks. She wraps her legs around his neck and murmurs, "Please, please…" and with one hand guides his head where she wants it.

He raises his head enough to see her eyes. "Ain't done this much," he admits. "So talk to me." He lowers his head again, inhales her scent, and makes one tentative lick, which sends her jerking upward.

"Ohhhh," she breathes. "That's right."

"Yeah?" His tongue flicks back and she digs her fingers into his hair.

He explores her cautiously at first.

"Suck a little," she demands after a while, and he does. She gasps, and he sucks harder. "Oh! Lighter…gentler…not so rough…mhmmm….yeah…like that….just like that…oh, God! Daryl!" Her hips jerk up again. "Oh God yes… please… please… " Her hands rake through his hair while she falls silent except for a hum of pleasure as she circles her hips.

He stills entirely for a moment and stops tasting her just to hear her beg for more. Her voice crying, "Please...please...please..." is like a drug to him, and he relents and flicks his tongue out again. This time, he doesn't let up.

Later, when she's shuddering from her orgasm, he breaks free of her grip on his hair, licks his way up over her belly to her breasts, and suckles first one nipple and then the other. Breathing hungrily, he pushes himself up by his arms over her as he pushes himself inside.

She gasp when he drives all the way in, and he groans. "Aw fuck ya feel good," he tells her before he begins to rock.

Carol closes her eyes, and it's as if there's a rainbow of colors swarming behind her eyelids. He bends his head as he begins to thrust, a low, pleasure-seeking growl sounding in his throat. He slows and then speeds up and then slows again…taking his time…trying to bring her to a second peak. Eventually, he does, and they both come crashing over the other side together, Daryl grunting out her name, and Carol singing his.

[*]

Iron horse shoes clatter over the disintegrating asphalt of the strip mall parking lot. Daryl peers through the smashed windows of the thoroughly emptied liquor store and moves on. Carol draws up beside him on her horse as they pass the pawn shop. The glass gun case inside has been smattered to shards and emptied. Next they ride by a bail bonds office, which is still intact, but three walkers can be seen bumbling around inside.

"An area like this?" Carol says. "I bet there's a Planned Parenthood."

"Ya want a pamphlet or somethin'?" Daryl asks.

Carol rolls her eyes. "It's a  _clinic_. It might still have something useful." They've learned they can push expiration dates on many pills for years.

"Doubt that, the way all this other shit's been looted."

"Maybe no one thought of it, because they were so busy getting drunk and grabbing guns."

Daryl glances at the tinted windows of  _Lacy's Massage Parlor_  as they ride past. "Looks like the kind of place with happy endin's."

"What do you know about it?" she teases.

"Nothin'," he says defensively. "Ain't Merle. Never went to a whore." He's uneasy after he says it, and admits what he wouldn't tell her in that game of truth and drink back at the house in Dumfries: "'Cept…once, maybe. Had sex with this woman. Turned out Merle paid 'er to pop m'cherry. But I didn't know." He looks at her out of the corner of his eye, enough to see that she isn't shocked. There's something more like sympathy on her face.

"And after that?" she asks.

"After that…'s mostly sisters or friends of Merle's girlfriends. They all wanted booze or drugs. But they also liked the fuckin'."

"I'm sure they did," Carol says. " _I_  like the fucking."

"Pffft."

"Don't  _pfft_  me," she says. "You  _know_  I like what we've been doing."

"Yeah, but we ain't been fuckin'. We been makin' love."

She smiles. It's that sweet, pretty smile that always makes his heart feel like it just stopped beating for a second.

They ride past a cleaned-out convenience store inhabited by a walker that seems to be missing the lower half of its body. It tries to crawl toward them using only its arms. They leave it be.

"How many women?" she asks.

"Ain't got the clap or nothin'."

"I assumed you would have told me if you did." Carol rests her hands on the horn of her saddle as they ride past a hole-in-the-wall bar with every window shattered and the bodies of six dead walkers, slain by whoever looted the place. "What about since we met?"

"Whattabout it?"

"Have you had sex with anyone since we met?" she asks. "Anyone from the Hilltop? Or any of the other allied camps?"

"Does it matter?  _You_  have." He doesn't mean to growl those last two words, but he does.

"No, it doesn't matter," she says gently. "But it's probably something we should discuss."

"Why?"

"Because," she says simply.

"Ya really wanna know?"

"Yes."

The horses clomp-clomp-clomp past a storefront advertising palm and tarot card readings. "For most of the last seven years," he tells her, "I've had an exclusive relationship with m'left hand."

Carol laughs. But then her lips settle into a firm, straight line. " _Most_?"

"After ya married 'Zeke, over the next few months …." Daryl looks away from her as if scanning the parking lot for threats.

"What?"

He shrugs. "I fucked every woman who came onto me when I was doin’ m’trade rounds.” When he dares to turn his eyes back, Carol is shifting uncomfortably in her saddle. "Ya asked," he says.

"And you answered," she replies dully. "I just…I'm surprised."

"Why?"

"Because you’ve never seemed interested in a woman before. I mean, besides me."

"I guess… long as I thought there was a chance...” Daryl swallows. “But when ya actually  _married_  'em…" He looks away.

"Why'd you stop after a few months?"

"'Cause it didn't help."

They pass an auto parts store, but it looks empty, except for some tires they can't transport and a few bottles of windshield wiper fluid.

"How many women did you sleep with?" she asks.

"Didn't  _sleep_  with any of 'em."

"You know what I meant. How many?"

"Ya really wanna know?"

They're riding past a thrift store now and Carol slows to a stop to peer inside. The windows have all been busted in, and what little junk remains looks dusty and useless. He thinks maybe she's gotten distracted and he's off the hook, but then she says, "I want to know if there was anyone I know."

He avoids the question, for the moment, with another question. "Who do ya know?"

"Tara."

"Tara ain't fuckin'  _no_  man."

"Rosita."

"Nah. She was with Siddiq then."

Carol clucks to Lancelot to lead the horse onward again. "Enid."

"Jesus Christ!" he calls as her horse walks off. "She's less'n half m'age!" Daryl gives Freckles a gentle kick to catch up with Carol.

"I was just listing women I know. And she was twenty when I married Ezekiel. Maggie?"

Maggie was still alive back then. "Nah. Wouldn't do that to Glenn."

"She loved Glenn deeply," Carol reasons, "but after a while, it would have been normal for her to want – "

"- Meant  _I'd_  never do that to Glenn."

"Oh." The horses clomp past a lawyer's office. "Michonne?"

"Never do that to Rick.”

"Cyndie?"

By the way her voice goes up, he thinks she'd be hurt if he said yes, so he's glad he can honestly say no. “Nobody ya much know, probably.”  Daryl steers his horse around a dead walker in the parking lot and then back to Carol. "Hell, weren’t nobody I much knew neither. Just women who wanted to be fucked a couple times by the loner bad boy.”

"How many?" Carol asks.

She's not going to let up on that one, is she? "Four," he answers.

"That's it!" she cries. "You made me think you'd been up and down and all around the block!"

"Pfft. Ya think that many women come onto me?”

Carol pulls Lancelot to a stop. "I hope none of them are coming to the fair," she says as she dismounts.

Daryl slides off Freckles. "Two of 'em're married now, if that helps."

"It doesn't."

"One’s dead. If that's better."

"Well I don't wish anyone  _dead._  Was it that flu?"

"Yeah." He looks at the building in front of them. There it is, Planned Parenthood, all locked up, door shut, windows un-smashed, the name etched in fading blue-and-white letters on the glass.

Carol strides to the window to the left of the solid wooden door and pounds on it hard with her fist, more times than she needs to in order to check for walkers. Then she puts her hand at her forehead and peers inside. She rears back.

"How many?" Daryl asks.

"Five I can see, at this window."

"Keep knockin'." He walks over to the window on the other side of the door and pounds on that one. They both pound for a minute and stop. "How many ya still got?"

"Six now."

"I got four."

The sound of thudding comes from behind the door. "And there's more behind the door," Carol says. "I think we're talking at least fifteen."

"Ain't worth it," he says.

"Isn't it though? A clinic, that hasn't been looted?"

He thinks maybe, after hearing about the women he's fucked, she just wants to kill something. And it's probably for the best that something isn't him. But fifteen, with only one door to funnel through? And the horses out here? If even one makes it past them and takes a single bite…there goes their most valuable asset. "How?" he asks.

Carol looks around, finds a loose brick, and holds it up. "We could smash one of the windows. They won't be able to crawl through all at once. Then we pick them off one or two at a time as they try to pile through."

"Liable to get bit smashing it."

"We throw from a distance."

"Mhm," Daryl agrees, "but let’s get the horses back." He leads them away from the door, to the other side of the lot, and ties them to the hitch of a pickup after scanning in all directions for walkers.

He comes back and watches Carol chuck the brick against the window. It bounces off and clatters to the asphalt. "A'ight, Babe Ruth," he tells her, "m'turn."

He winds up the brick and chucks it hard. Again, it just bounces off the window, but this time, at least, there's a crack in the glass.

Carol takes the brick and chucks it, and two more cracks spider through the glass, but the window holds.

Daryl scoops up the brick. She holds out her hand for it and says, "No, I weakened it for you. You're not going to get the credit. I bet you were that kid at the birthday party who always wanted the last whack at the pinata."

He hands over the brick warily. "Ain't never been to a birthday party with no damn pinata. 'S for rich kids."

"I was  _hardly_  a rich kid," she replies. "But my mom used to make one using paper machae. And she'd fill it with all those cheap hard candies."

"Peppermints?" he asks.

"And butterscotch."

Daryl licks his lips.

"I don't guess you ever had a birthday party?"

"Nah. Went to my cousin's birthday party once, though, when I's eight. 'Bout Easter time. My mama drove me across two towns to take me there. M'aunt, she hired a clown 'n everythin'. 'Course, clown was drunk off his damn ass. Took a piss in the sandbox where my aunt'd buried all these eggs with tootsie rolls in 'em for the kids to find. 'N then no one wanted to dig 'n find 'em. 'Cept me. I found 'em all."

Carol chuckles.

"Wasn't invited back the next year," he continues. "Or maybe I was 'n my daddy didn't tell me, since my mama was dead." He nods to the brick. "Go for it."

Carol winds up her arm to pitch the brick. This time, the glass shatters and rains down inside the clinic and outside on the parking lot.

Daryl raises his bow and shoots the first walker to try to crawl out. While he reloads, Carol strides forward and knifes a second walker, and then runs backward as Daryl shoots a third. She jogs up and knifes a fourth as Daryl reloads. A walker seizes her arm, and she swings herself sideways, her arm still in its walker's grip, to give Daryl a clear shot at its head, which he takes. The dead hand slackens, and she swings back to stab a sixth walker. They're piling up fast now and getting too grabby, so she runs back to the horse and draws her rifle out from behind the saddle pack.

When she gets back, Daryl's struggling to reload, and one walker has crawled all the way out into the parking lot and is lurching toward them. She picks it off, as well as another that is hanging half out the window, and then four more that are clawing near its sides. She runs up and shoots through the window, straight, left right, straight until she thinks she's picked them all off. "I need some light!" she calls

Daryl steps over the bodies to shine a flashlight into the darkened clinic, sweeping it every which way. There's only two left, and with a pew-pew from her rifle, they're down.

Carol goes back to the saddle bags for a shirt to wrap around her arm for brushing away the glass, and, eventually, both crawl inside.

When they come out with plastic bags full of antibiotics and other medicines, there are couple dozen walkers lurching from across the street toward the frightened horses. The gunshots must have drawn them out of the woods on the other side. They shove the medicines hurriedly in the saddle bags, untie the horses, and ride off quickly, leaving the grasping walkers in their wake.


	29. Married

Luckily, Carol finds four more boxes of ammunition that day, in a little, two-bedroom brick house they decide to hole up in overnight. She scavenges the entire house while Daryl's out hunting their supper and finds a half-finished bottle of whiskey as well, buried in an underwear drawer. She holds the bottle up later when Daryl comes through the kitchen door, an already skinned rabbit slung over his shoulder. "Somebody had a drinking problem he hid from his wife," she tells him.

"Ain't mine."

She clonks it down on the table. "I didn't mean you, silly. And I'm not your wife.  _Yet_." She smiles. "But I'm looking forward to being Mrs. Dixon."

"Yeah? Ya want that name?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

He shrugs. "I never wanted it. Just meant ya was from a shit family."

"Well that's not what it means now, does it?"

He nods to the bottle. "Any good?"

"All whiskey tastes awful to me."

Daryl walks over, tosses the rabbit on the counter, and pops the top off the whiskey bottle before taking a swig. He swishes it around in his mouth and swallows. "Drinkable," he declares.

"Whiskey rabbit stew?" she asks.

"That a thing?"

"It  _could_  be. I don't have much else to make broth with, and you don't need to be getting drunk tonight."

The stew turns out better than she expected, with the help of some of the salt, herbs, and spices she picked up from the bed and breakfast yesterday, and with the dandelion greens she yanks up from the front yard and throws in to complement the meat. It must be better than Daryl expects, too, because he grunts, "Damn good!" twice while he eats.

They stable the horses in the largely empty, one-car garage, to keep them safe from walkers. They don't bother to light a fire tonight – there's no reason to risk attention-drawing smoke when it's not cold, and the evening weather has warmed a good ten degrees since yesterday. It's still cool, but it's warm enough pressed together in their love nest, in the afterglow of sex.

Carol slides her fingers into the hair on Daryl's chest and tugs lazily on it while he fades in and out of sleep. "I love making love," she says, "but I bet I'd like fucking, too."

"What?" he murmurs and opens one eye.

"We can do both, if you want. The fucking and the making love. Just not both at the same time, probably."

He closes his eye and makes a doubtful noise.

"I'm hardly a delicate flower, Daryl."

He opens both eyes sleepily. "Wanna fuck now?"

"No," she admits. "Not right now."

"In the mornin'?"

"Probably not in the morning either."

"Pfft." He closes his eyes.

"But  _sometime_. When the time is right. I really would be fine with it."

"Mhmhm."

She settles her head onto his shoulder. "You don't know me."

"Keep tellin' yerself that."

**[*]**

The next morning they do have sex, but slowly and lazily, waking each other's bodies with the sun.

"I think we're doing this backward," Carol tells him afterward as she snuggles in. "We're having our honeymoon before our wedding."

"Always did like dessert before dinner," he murmurs.

She rolls onto her back. With her head on his shoulder, she says, "You can fuck me, you know, if you want, however you want. I wasn't joking about that. I don't what you to get bored."

"Get bored? Hell ya talkin' 'bout?"

She pulls the sleeping bag they're using as a cover up to her neck. "I know I'm a little shy about sex. A little… _conventional_. I take a lot of warming up. And …I don't want you to get bored."

"Ain't nothin' borin' 'bout you," he insists. "Hell, Carol, I ain't never had sex like this before. Didn't even know I  _could_."

She rolls to her side to face him. "What do you mean?"

"Mean…never been completely naked with a woman before. Always left m'clothes mostly on, 'cept what needed to come down. Never wanted to show a woman m'scars before. Never looked a woman in the eyes durin'. Never  _felt_  anythin'. Mean, got off, but I never  _felt_  a damn thing. 'S never been anythin' but scratchin' an itch before. What we been doin'," he assures her, "ain't nothin' borin' 'bout it."

She snuggles against his side. "The first woman you've  _ever_  been naked with?"

"Mhmhm."

"You're the first man who ever brought me to orgasm. I mean, a  _real_  orgasm. I thought I'd had orgasms before…but I guess I hadn't."

His finger slides gently up her spine under the heavy blanket of the sleeping bag. "Yer the first woman I ever went down on."

"What?" She has to look up for a moment to see if he's joking. He said he didn't have much experience at it . He didn't say he had  _none_. There's no twinkle of a joke in his eyes, though. She lowers her head to his shoulder again. "But you were pretty good at it."

"'Cause yer a damn good teacher."

"You're the first man who ever brought me a flower."

"Can't be."

"You are. The first  _man_. I'm not counting my prom date. Ed never did."

"Well, yer the first woman I ever brought a flower to. So damn nervous when I brought that thing in the trailer, too. Just wanted to give ya some hope. Thought, hell, maybe this'll make her stop cryin' for a minute. But it  _made_  ya cry."

"Because it was beautiful. Because the story was beautiful. Because the thought was beautiful. Because what you tried to do for my little girl – it was beautiful." She traces the muscles of his left shoulder with her forefinger. She tries to think of another one. "You're the first man who ever caught and cooked a snake for me."

"Yer the first woman, ever made me muffins."

"No," she insists. "Surely you're mother made you muffins."

"My mama wasn't 'zactly Betty Crocker."

"You're the first man who ever took me on a motorcycle ride. I think I was more scared of that bike than of the walkers chasing us."

"Pffft." His hand slides from her bare ass, where it's settled, upward over her back. "You're the first woman ever said ya loved me.  _Not_  countin' my mamma."

Carol's relieved his mother at least told him that. "You're the first man I've ever been in love with."

His hand freezes between her shoulder blades. "Whattabout 'Zeke?"

"I loved him. But I wasn't  _in love_  with him. I think I just wanted some semblance of normalcy. A family for Henry, while he was still young. A husband who treated me like a queen, instead of the way Ed did. I wanted to try to forget all the horrors of the past, and I couldn't do that in Alexandria or the Hilltop, with all those ghosts and friends of ghosts walking around. I wanted the whole storybook thing. And it was a storybook. It wasn't  _real_. But I believed it for a while. If he hadn't died, though, I don't know if our marriage would have lasted another year. It's a terrible, terrible thing to say, but I'm just glad Henry didn't ever have to see us split up. I feel guilty about that marriage. Like I  _used_  Ezekiel."

"Didn't use 'em," Daryl says. "Gave 'em 'zactly what he wanted, which was you. He had ya for three years. If a man loves ya…he'd be happy with that. Hell, he'd take three months with ya. Three weeks. Three days. He'd take three minutes, and he'd be grateful he got 'em."

"I'm sorry I hurt you. I didn't mean to. I had no idea marrying Ezekiel would hurt you that badly. You said you were happy for me."

"Hell else was I s'posed to say? 'N I was. 'Cause ya seemed happier then I'd seen ya…since…well. Since the prison."

"Why didn't you say anything?" she asks. "If you loved me…why didn't you just  _say_  so?"

His hand slides to settle at the small of her back. "By the time I knew I did… thought it was too late."

"When did you know?"

"When ya told me you were gonna marry 'em. Somethin'…snapped inside me."

Carol lifts her head and half sits up to look down at him.

"'S when I knew for  _sure_ ," he continues. "Had an inkling 'fore then. Guess maybe I kind of felt it as far back as the farm. Just didn't know what love was 'fore I met ya, so…didn't know what any of that shit I was feelin' all those years was."

She strokes his cheek with the back of her hand. "I love you, Daryl. So very much." She bends to kiss him gently.

When she pulls away, his eyes flit down, the way they do sometimes when he's overcome with some emotion and it's too much. It's just too much. "Better pack up," he mutters. "Get movin'."

[*]

Carol is bent over her backpack, which rests in the armchair, to slip in her sweat pants inside, when she feels a sudden, sharp prick in the seat of her pants. "Ow!" she stands and whirls around to find Daryl standing by the couch and chortling like a schoolboy. He's too far away to have actually touched her. He's all the way on the other side of the room. "What did you just do?"

"That hurt?" he asks. "Didn't think it would."

She swats at the back of her pants and plucks something out of them. It's a tooth pick. And there's something tiny and silver in his hand. "What the hell is that?" she asks.

"'S a baby crossbow. Made of out metal or some shit. Found it on the bookshelf. Ya can shoot  _toothpicks_  with it." He reaches over to the end table, where a small cylindrical canister of toothpicks sits, and fishes one out and loads the miniature, doll-sized crossbow.

"Oh no you don't," she tells him, and runs across the room to swipe it from his hand, but he swirls to evade her. She chases him around the room until he hits his knee on the coffee table, curses, and drops the tiny bow to clutch his knee.

She scoops it up quickly, pulls back the trigger that is smaller than her fingertip, and shoots him right in the ass. "Didn't even feel it!" he yells.

"Well it didn't go through your pants."

He swipes the tooth pick out of the back of his pants. "Give it here."

"No."

"Ain't gonna shoot ya again," he promises. "Just wanna keep it."

She shakes her head, but she hands the bow over to him. He screws the lid back onto the toothpicks and packs that in his backpack too.

"I guess it will come in handy if we encounter a walker that's been through a shrink ray, huh?" she teases.

[*]

That afternoon, they pause in their travels to loot a small, local coffee shop. The front is cleared out, but no one busted into the storage room. It's mostly full of napkins and paper towels, toilet paper and cleaning supplies, but there are also several extra boxes containing one-cup servings of instant coffee powder back there. "Fancy shit," Daryl mutters. "Don't taste no better than Folgers 'n they charge three times as much."

"It tastes better than Folgers," she assures him.

They decide to use their camp stove to heat up some water and have a cup of coffee in the middle of the day, at one of the two-people tables, in the midst of the tsunami of napkins and stirring straws and coffee cups that line the floor. They also eat the last two pieces of Grandma Bonnie's strawberry pie – Garland snuck four total in the saddle bags.

"A'ight, yer right," he admits. "Tastes a hell of a lot better 'n Folgers crystals."

"I always wanted to go on a coffee date." Carol smiles at Daryl over the curling steam that drifts from her cup.

"'S somethin' rich people used to do."

"You think  _everything_  is something rich people used to do."

"Guess I was just that poor." He slurps his coffee. "Sometimes, we'd go weeks without power. The water'd be turned off."

"You know, they had programs for people who can't pay their utilities. I know. My mom used to use them sometimes."

"Yeah, well, sounds like yer mom was a responsible human being."

"She tried," Carol says. "But it wasn't easy, after my dad died, raising us alone."

" _Us_?" Daryl asks.

"I had a sister."

"How come ya ain't never mentioned her?"

"We don't even talk about the people we lost at the start of the Outbreak, most of us," Carol says. "And I lost her long before that, when I was twelve. Car accident. She was three years older, and was with these teenage boys who had been drinking."

"Sorry 'bout your sister. Had one, too."

"What? I thought it was just you and Merle."

Daryl leans forward with his elbows on the table. "Merle was in juvie when she was born. I was seven. By then, my mama, she really liked her wine…so the baby, poor thing, had, uh…'s called?"

"Fetal alcohol syndrome?"

"Mhmhm. Cried a lot. So m'daddy, he took off for a bit after she was born. Couldn't stand the cryin'. 'N my mama, she'd sort of take care of her, but then drink and pass out. Me, I thought…hell 'm gonna get to be the big brother for a change. 'N I ain't gonna be like Merle. Gonna build 'er up, ya know. Not tear 'er down. Gonna protect 'er. So I'd feed, 'er. Change 'er, when the diaper got bad enough. Ain't right. Seven-year-old kid takin' care of a baby. But I did."

"Is that why you took to Judith so easily? Beth said you gave her her first bottle."

"Maybe. M'sister, though…didn't last two months. Slept all night one night ,'n I thought damn. She's getting better. Ain't cryin' so much. Gettin' stronger. Didn't know they wasn't s'posed to sleep all through the night at that age. 'N then she just didn't wake up the next mornin'. Undertaker called the police. Routine, I guess, when a baby dies. Police investigated. They called it SITS or some shit."

"SIDS."

"Yeah." He lets out a shaky sigh and then sips some more coffee. "Called CPS when they saw the trash heap we lived in, though, 'n all the bottles. 'N CPS took me for a few weeks, but my mamma got me back somehow."

"What was foster care like?" Carol asks.

"Same shit, diff'rn channel. 'S glad to go home. M'daddy wasn't beatin' me yet, though. That didn't start 'til my mama died in the fire the next year. Guess he took a couple years off 'tween me 'n Merle."

"What was her name? Your sister?"

"Didn't have one. Baby certificate just said Baby Girl Dixon. M'mama was gonna pick it later. Never did."

Carol reaches out across the table and covers his hand with hers and squeezes.

With his free hand, he lifts his cup and slams the rest of his coffee. "'S hit the road."

[*]

Carol trails her fingertips across Daryl's arm as she draws away from their parting kiss. They've reached the fork in the road that leads west to the Hilltop and north to the Kingdom. Daryl has to return Freckles, who belongs to the Hilltop. Then he'll spend some time with Hershel, hunt to fill the Hilltop's smokehouse as a parting gift, say his goodbyes, gather Dog and his things, and return to the Kingdom in a few weeks for the late spring fair, where he'll take Carol as his bride.

He thinks about that as he rides alone along the shoulder of the highway, where the asphalt crumbles. He wonders if he'll make a decent husband, if he'll be what Carol wants him to be, if she'll want more than he can give her. He only knows he wants her, and that however badly his parents failed at their own marriage, he's going to do better.

Aaron greets him inside the gates of the Hilltop: "We were getting worried. We got word you'd gone on a road trip, but we expected you back by now. Tara was just getting ready to send a rider to the Kingdom to check if Carol had returned. How was your…" Aaron smiles, " _vacation_?"

Walking beside Freckles, Daryl follows Aaron inside and briefly recounts the adventure at Jamestown. They come to a stop before the mansion, and Daryl tells Aaron he's marrying Carol and moving to the Kingdom.

Aaron sighs. "We all assumed it would happen one day."

"Ya did?" Daryl never assumed any such thing.

"We're going to hate to lose you, but I'm happy for you, Daryl. I really am."

Dog comes bounding out of the barn and leaps up, barking, to put his front paws on Daryl's chest. Daryl lowers his head to accept his friend's wet-tongued kiss. "Down, boy!" he growls at last, and Dog yips and falls to all fours. "Leg's lookin' better."

"All healed up," Aaron replies. "You were gone awhile. The smokehouse is getting a little light."

"Gonna hunt a few weeks. Get y'all some deer to fill it 'fore I go. But the other hunters are gonna have to pick up my slack when 'm gone. "

Hershel comes running out of the Hilltop's schoolhouse yelling "Uncle Daryl! Uncle Daryl!" Daryl scoops him up into a bear hug. The boy squirms sideways in his arms, sees the horse, and shouts happily, "Freckles is okay!" Daryl sets Hershel on his feet to go pet the horse he named.

Enid comes down the mansion steps next, greets Daryl with a hug, and then takes Hershel's hand and the reins of Freckles. She leads the horse and the boy to the stables. Daryl watches them leave, and murmurs to Aaron, "Ain't gonna be easy tellin' the boy."

"He  _misses_  you when you're gone," Aaron replies, "but he's also  _used_  to you being gone for days at a time. You aren't exactly a homebody. And he's got Enid. Tara. Me. Jesus. Everyone. He'll be fine.”

[*]

Ten miles outside the Kingdom, Carol hears the sound of horse hooves and buries herself in the brush to peer through binoculars. On the road beyond the trees, Dianne rides by, a quiver on her back, and slows her horse to a stroll. Behind her follow three knights of the Kingdom, looking left and then right, and on the heels of their horses, two dogs.

Smiling, Carol emerges. Swords are drawn and arrows pointed in her direction, but only for a moment before they're lowered. Dianne slides from her horse and saunters over, smiling as much as the woman ever does smile, and nods to her queen. "I told them there was no way you weren't coming back alive."

"But you sent out a search party?" Carol asks.

"Jerry insisted. We expected you back by now."

"We ran into a delay," Carol tells her. "And were guests of another camp for a week."

"Guests?"

"Well…at first we were prisoners. Then we were guests."

Dianne smirks. "This sounds like quite the story." As they ride back to the Kingdom, Carol describes their adventure.

Dianne never notices her ring, but Jerry does, after she enters the gates, and she pulls away from his happy embrace. The big man points at the cameo, grinning. "Is that what I think it is? Did Daryl finally pop the question?"

Carol toys with the ring. "What do you mean? You were  _expecting_  him to?"

Nabila, who has drawn up beside Jerry with a toddler on her hip, says, "Daryl's been visiting you almost every week for months. He stays in your bedchamber. Yes, we all assumed he'd ask eventually."

"He slept on my  _couch_ ," Carol clarifies. "Did you all think that this whole time…"

Jerry and Nabila exchange glances and smiles.

Carol laughs. "Well, yes, he did pop the question. We're getting married at the fair. Nothing big!" she warns Jerry. "No major pomp and circumstance. But I'd love for you both to be there."

"We wouldn't miss it for the world," Nabila assures her.

"So…" Jerry asks. "Is he going to be King Daryl now?"

"I wouldn't try calling him that, if I were you," Carol warns.

**[*]**

Daryl straps Dog to his chest and saddles his motorcycle. As a parting gift from the Hilltop, he has just enough ethanol to make it to the Kingdom.

The Kingdom doesn't grow corn, and even if it did they might not want to spare any of it for fuel, so he'll have to get some from the Hilltop next time he comes to trade. But he's not leaving without his bike, even if it's a bike he can only tinker with.

For now, though, he enjoys the wind in his hair, the feel of the steel horse between his legs, the smell of the fumes, the roar of the engine as he glides down the highway with his canine companion.

This is the only bachelor party he wants or would ever ask for.

Who knows when he'll ride again.

[*]

Daryl can't wait until this wedding is over.

His dress shirt feels weirdly stiff and there's not enough room for his balls to breathe properly in these ridiculous khakis. He doesn't like all these people staring at him as he stands under this dumbass arch covered in flowers. The Kingdom's musicians strike up the wedding march on violin, and Judith skips down between the two columns of folding chairs tossing petals. That makes him forget his misery for a minute, because that girl is about the cutest damn child he's ever seen.

But then Carol rounds the back of the chairs and begins her march toward him. She's only wearing a simple spring dress – white with flowers – but he's never seen her in a dress before. Goddamn she's beautiful. He rocks back on his heels for a moment and then plants them forward. When she's standing across from him, he feels like he's underwater. He takes in a deep breath and blows it out, and she smiles.

Two rings rest in the crevice of the open pages of Father Gabriel's Bible – the Cherokee rose cameo and the silver band with arrow – both of which have been resized by the Kingdom's blacksmith to better fit.

Daryl repeats the words Father Gabriel tells him to say. His hand isn't entirely steady when he slips the ring onto Carol's finger, and neither is his heart when he's told, "You may kiss your bride."

[*]

In the receiving line that follows, Daryl's eyes keep raking over Carol. "You like my dress?" she asks with a teasing smile.

"Mhmhm."

Carol hugs Michonne and then taps the nose of RJ, who rides Michonne's hip. Judith files by next and tips her father's old hat up when she looks up at the couple. "It's about time," she says, and Daryl chuffs and knocks her hat down over her eyes.

Henry walks by next and holds out an open hand to Daryl, who shakes. "I decided to follow your example," he says, and nods to Rachel from Oceanside, who stands next to him.

Carol gasps at the ring on her finger. "You're much too young!" she says.

" _Relax_. We're waiting until I turn eighteen, Mom," he assures her. "It's just an  _engagement_  for now." He's taller than Carol now, and he bends a little when he hugs her. "Congratulations. I'm happy for you, Mom."

Carol smiles, relieved that Henry doesn't seem to feel like she's trying to replace his adoptive father by marrying Daryl. Sometime in the last few weeks at Oceanside, the boy became a man. She congratulates Rachel, too. The girl is a little hard-around-the-edges for an idealist like Henry, Carol thinks, but maybe that's just what he needs to balance him.

The newlyweds get a lot of hugs as Eugene, Jesus, Aaron, Tara, Jerry, Dianne, Nabila, Rosita, Siddiq, and Enid file by to say their congratulations. When the line peters out, Daryl's eyes dip down again at the cotton dress clinging to her breasts, and he murmurs, "Can we go now?"

**[*]**

The sounds of the fair die away as Daryl and Carol hurry up the ramp of their temporary classroom trailer. His mouth ravishing her lips, he backs her inside the trailer and kicks the door shut behind himself. When he pushes her against the metal teacher's desk, she tears at the buttons on his shirt. It doesn't matter that she pops three off in her hurry to undress him. She knows he'll never wear this stiff dress shirt again.

Daryl rips his mouth from her lips and steps back to yank his now half-unbuttoned shirt over his head, and with it the undershirt beneath. The muscles of his arms and chest ripple as he tosses the clothing roughly aside. He quickly undoes his belt, and the buckle clangs with the force of his undressing. When he drops his pants and kicks them back, he stands before her naked and unashamed.

Carol drags her eyes from the stern line of his jaw over his muscular chest and down. Still looking at his awaiting erection, she reaches under the hem of her spring dress to slide off her panties. She steps out of them and kicks them aside. But when she begins to lift the dress to pull it off and match his nakedness, he gruffly orders, "Nah-uh. Leave it on."

Carol lets go of the hem, and the white floral dress falls back to just above her knees. Daryl lifts her onto the metal teacher's desk, slides a hand up over her bare leg to her knee, and then spreads her legs open, stretching the material of the dress, before he leans in to possess her lips again. Kissing her hungrily, he yanks her to the edge of the desk and drives himself inside.

The desk's metal filing cabinet drawer, which was partially open, rolls shut with a metallic clang. It's not long before the whole desk is shaking from the strength of their hungry thrusting. Carol moans with abandon, and Daryl's animalist grunts fill the trailer. The sound is all in his throat, and that rough rumble makes Carol even more excited.

He pulls partway out, and his lips open to form a single word - " _Mine_ " - before he drives into her again, hitting a spot she'd always believed was only myth. Carol cries out his name, so loud she's sure they must hear it all the way back at the fair, and then he does it again, growling, " _Mine_."

Tonight he's claiming her as his own, and tonight she lets him. "Yes!" she shouts.

" _Mine. Mine. Miiiiiine!_ "

[*]

When the sunlight streams through the partially opened slats of the blinds. Carol teases her husband awake with ticklish kisses along his jawline as they lie on their mattress on the floor. The classroom trailer is spartan, with just the made-up mattress, a teacher's desk, and a bunch of stacked chairs. But for now, it's home.

They make love, slowly and gently this time, as the sun warms their flesh. Spooned back against Daryl afterward, Carol hums contentedly, and he sighs just as contently into the crook of her neck.

He kisses her ear and then drawls, "Mornin', Mrs. Dixon."

**THE END**


End file.
